1 Teachers ’ Perceptions of Students ’ Disruptive Behavior: The Effect of Racial Congruence and Consequences for School Suspension

African-American students are considerably more likely than their white peers to be rated as disruptive by their teacher and experience school discipline, but are also much less likely to have a teacher of the same race. This paper explores whether the racial or ethnic congruence of teachers and students affects teachers ’ perceptions of students ’ disruptive behavior and has larger consequences for student suspension rates. To identify the effect of racial interactions on teacher assessments, I estimate models that include both classroom and student fixed effects. I find that African-American students are rated as less disruptive when they have an African-American teacher, whereas perceptions of white and Hispanic students ’ disruptiveness are unaffected by having a teacher of the same race or ethnicity. I also find that African-American students with more African-American teachers are suspended less often, suggesting the underrepresentation of African-American teachers has important implications for black-white gaps in school discipline