Schools often manage problem behaviours by enacting exclusionary school discipline policies that remove students via suspension or expulsion. This study characterises exclusionary school discipline practices in a representative, longitudinal, population-based cohort of 71,955 students attending New South Wales public schools in Australia. The findings indicate that suspending and expelling children does not address problem behaviour.

This study uses a sample of over 21,000 Australian children and their parents to determine the prevalence and co-occurrence of offending among mothers and fathers, and the relationship between parental offending and children’s conduct problems at age 11.