Blacks demonstrate behavioral patterns which set them apart from mainstream society. The intermixing of two cultures, one of blacks born into slavery and the other of newly arrived African slaves, have created a strong basis for black culture in the United States (Hale 1982). Naturally, the values and mannerisms of the culture are often transliterated into the classroom. In school, black students tend to share a set of characteristics which distinguish them from their peers. Their mode of interaction is animated, interpersonal and confrontational (Kochman 1983). For blacks, these are considered normal forms of interaction, but utilizing their definition of normality in the school may be problematic.
In contrast to black culture, the standard way of interaction in educational institutions aligns more with the white mode of interaction. It is characterized by more dispassionate, impersonal and non-challening interactions (Kochman 1983). Furthermore, one of the objectives of the United States’ education system is to promote this white standard. As a part of
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Referrals to the office which ultimately lead to suspension tend to be for reasons that are more objectively observable in whites, whereas for blacks, they lean towards behaviors that appear to be more subjective (Gregory et al. 2010). This demonstrates how blacks students are overly selected for disciplinary action. These issues may arise from a discord between the students’ actions and the teachers socially constructed frames of appropriate behavior (Milner 2013). Further, time spent on unnecessary disciplinary action is time lost learning. This relates to the academic achievement gap in black students, just to demonstrate another instance in which blacks are yet again systematically disadvantaged in education (Gregory et al.