Looking for Trouble: How Teachers’ Racialized Practices Perpetuate Discipline Inequities in Early Childhood

Abstract

Racial disproportionality in school discipline is a major U.S. educational problem. Official data show that Black boys are disciplined at the highest rates of any racial and gender subgroup. Scholars suggest the “criminal” Black male image shapes teachers’ views and treatment of their Black male students. Yet few studies examine the everyday mechanisms of racial discipline disparities, particularly in early childhood. This study uses ethnography to understand first-grade teachers’ disciplinary interactions with Black and White boys. The findings uncover teachers’ racialized disciplinary practices via differential surveillance of, differential engagement with, and differential responses to noncompliance from Black and White boys as key mechanisms that reproduce unequal disciplinary experiences in early childhood education.

Keywords

school discipline race gender early childhood differential treatment

A defining feature of the lives of Black men both historically and in the contemporary United States is their cultural representation as particularly deviant and criminal in comparison to White men (Collins 2005; Ferber 2007; Smiley and Fakunle 2016). These “controlling images” have real-world consequences relating to media portrayals of Black male victims of police violence, incarceration rates, and other forms of gendered and racialized marginalization (Collins 2005; Smiley and Fakunle 2016). These labels can also shape the lives of Black boys, including in their schooling experiences (Brown and Donnor 2011; Dumas and Nelson 2016; Ferguson 2001; Ladson-Billings 2011). This is especially apparent when examining racial-gender disproportionality in school discipline. Recent national data for the United States show that Black boys account for 7.7 percent of total public school enrollment but receive 20.1 percent of in-school suspensions and 24.9 percent of out-of-school suspensions (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights 2021). In contrast, White boys account for 24.4 percent of public school enrollment and receive only 28.7 percent of in-school suspensions and 24.9 percent of out-of-school suspensions (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights 2021).

Consequently, the overrepresentation of Black boys in school discipline is a major problem in U.S. education. Research suggests this disproportionality is largely due to teachers’ racial bias and differential treatment rather than racial differences in behavior (Boonstra 2021; Ferguson 2001; Freidus 2020; Gansen 2021; Gregory, Skiba, and Noguera 2010; Owens and McLanahan 2020; Skiba et al. 2002). Whether consciously or unconsciously, White teachers are more likely to perceive Black children than White children as exhibiting problem behaviors (Downey and Pribesh 2004; McGrady and Reynolds 2013; Redding 2019; Zimmermann 2018).

Few studies examine how differential treatment produces school discipline disparities, especially in early childhood. Several recent ethnographies show how racialized, gendered, classed, or ableist ideologies shape teachers’ disciplinary practices as early as preschool and kindergarten (Boonstra 2021; Freidus 2020; Gansen 2021). This research suggests teachers engage in more punitive practices with marginalized students, such as monitoring them more closely or responding more harshly to their behavior compared to more privileged students (Boonstra 2021; Freidus 2020; Gansen 2021). The present study provides a greater understanding of the mechanisms of discipline disparities in early childhood education by demonstrating how teachers’ racialized practices produce disparate disciplinary experiences for Black and White boys.

This article draws on over 400 hours of participant observations in a racially and socioeconomically diverse elementary school, observing the routine behaviors of first-grade Black and White boys and disciplinary interactions with their teachers. I ask the following research questions:

Research Question 1: How do teachers engage in disciplinary interactions with Black and White boys?

Research Question 2: How do these interactions shape the disciplinary experiences of Black and White boys?

I find that teachers use authoritarian disciplinary practices with Black boys and permissive disciplinary practices with White boys. These racialized disciplinary practices can be seen in teachers’ differential surveillance of boys, engagement with misbehaving boys, and responses to noncompliance from Black and White boys. I discuss in detail how these findings further our understanding of how differential treatment produces racial disparities in school discipline.

Race, Boyhood, and School Discipline

An abundance of research describes and analyzes racial disparities in school discipline in the United States (Diamond and Lewis 2019; Gregory et al. 2010; Owens 2022; Owens and McLanahan 2020; Skiba et al. 2002). From preschool through high school, schools suspend and expel Black students at higher rates than any other racial or ethnic subgroup (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights 2021). Studies suggest teachers’ unconscious biases play a central role in producing racial disparities in school discipline (Gilliam et al. 2016; Owens 2022; Rudd 2014). Although Skiba et al. (2002) found that boys engage in disruptive behavior more frequently than girls, they found no such differences for race. The authors suggest teachers often discipline Black students for more subjective infractions (e.g., defiance), whereas White students are disciplined for more objective infractions (e.g., smoking; Skiba et al. 2002). School-level variables such as the quality of academic instruction, racial makeup of teachers and the student body, differential processing, and school climate are all predictors of discipline disparities (Skiba and Williams 2014). Scholars also suggest that exclusion via school discipline has negative implications for students’ academic performance, attachment to school, and contact with the criminal legal system (Mittleman 2018; Morris and Perry 2016; Perry and Morris 2014; Pyne 2019; Wolf and Kupchik 2017).

According to intersectionality theory, systems of race and gender do not independently affect the lives of individuals but have a simultaneous effect (Collins 2005; Crenshaw 1991). “Controlling images,” or stereotypical depictions of social groups, shape how people perceive and interact with these groups and how social policies are targeted toward them (Brown and Donnor 2011; Collins 2005). In the United States, the dominant depiction of Black masculinity is one of danger and criminality (Collins 2005; Ferber 2007; Ferguson 2001; Smiley and Fakunle 2016). Black males are often depicted as a “problem” in need of discipline and social control (Brown and Donnor 2011; Dumas 2016; Ferguson 2001). Social and educational policies targeted toward Black males often focus on fixing their “deviant” behaviors, which are cited as the source of the social inequalities they face (e.g., school discipline disparities, mass incarceration), while the role of gendered racism is minimized (Brown and Donnor 2011; Dumas 2016).

This depiction of Black boyhood/masculinity as especially deviant serves to dehumanize Black boys while perpetuating and justifying various forms of social exclusion. Black boys are often viewed as dangerous due to historical stereotypes (e.g., the “superpredator”) that depict them as uncontrollable and threatening (Collins 2005; Dumas and Nelson 2016; Ferber 2007; Smiley and Fakunle 2016). In line with sociological theories of racism (Bonilla-Silva 2015; Golash-Boza 2016) that emphasize how racist ideologies and structures interact, these racialized and gendered depictions of Black males affect their social experiences across an array of social institutions (Rios 2011).

One of the most significant concepts in the literature for understanding the relationship between race, gender, and school discipline is that of differential treatment (Diamond and Lewis 2019; Gregory et al. 2010; Owens and McLanahan 2020; Piquero 2008; Skiba et al. 2002). Differential treatment refers to teachers’ differing responses to similar behaviors from different groups of students, such as Black and White boys. Research suggests differential treatment, rather than differential behavior (i.e., the role of racial differences in student behavior in producing disparities in school discipline), is the largest driver of racial disparities in school discipline (Diamond and Lewis 2019; Ferguson 2001; Gregory et al. 2010; Owens and McLanahan 2020). Owens and McLanahan (2020) found that differential treatment, school segregation, and differential behavior accounted for approximately 50 percent, 20 percent, and 10 percent of racial disparities in school discipline, respectively. The authors suggest future research should work to gain a better understanding of what differential treatment looks like in schools given its large effect on racial disparities in discipline.

Social-psychological experiments demonstrate that educators exhibit significant racial-gender biases against Black male students in comparison to all other race and gender subgroups (Gilliam et al. 2016; Okonofua and Eberhardt 2015; Owens 2022). Recently, Owens (2022) found that teachers view Black boys as more blameworthy for classroom misbehavior when compared to White boys engaging in the same behavior. Eye-tracking studies reveal that, even in the absence of misbehavior, teachers and school staff watch Black boys more closely than White children (Gilliam et al. 2016). Vignette studies have also found that educators endorse giving Black boys harsher punishments, hold lower behavioral standards for Black boys compared to White boys, and expect Black boys to repeat problem behavior (Goff et al. 2014; Kunesh and Noltemeyer 2019; Okonofua and Eberhardt 2015). Overall, the existing literature suggests teachers perceive Black boys as more consistently engaging in problem behavior compared to White boys; however, these studies provide little information as to how these biases link to teachers’ disciplinary practices. Through school ethnography, researchers can observe how teachers and students act in real-life situations, over a sustained period, allowing for a better understanding of the mechanisms of disparate disciplinary outcomes.

Social scientists are also beginning to identify the mechanisms of school discipline disparities, particularly in early childhood, by conducting participant observation in schools. Teachers’ differential interpretation of similar behaviors and consequently, differential practices reproduce inequalities in discipline in early childhood at the intersections of race, gender, class, and ability (Boonstra 2021; Freidus 2020; Gansen 2021). More specifically, because of ideologies that suggest marginalized children are more problematic than others, teachers engage in more punitive practices toward them (e.g., timeouts and classroom removals) (Boonstra 2021; Freidus 2020; Gansen 2021). In contrast, studies find that teachers engage in more positive practices (e.g., redirection and medicalization) with socially privileged children (Freidus 2020; Gansen 2021).

Methods

This research took place at World Charter School (WCS), a public charter school in the downtown area of a large urban city serving 820 students in grades K–8. The school is racially/ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. The student population is 40 percent Black, 25 percent White, 20 percent Latino (of any race), 5 percent Asian, and 10 percent multiracial. Considering the pervasiveness of school segregation in the United States, the racial diversity of WCS provided a unique opportunity to study everyday race relations in school discipline by observing the experiences of Black and White boys in the same classrooms with the same teachers.

This study focused on the interactions between 30 six- and seven-year-old boys, 13 Black and 17 White, at WCS and their teachers. The study included all Black and White boys across the school’s four first-grade classrooms whose parents consented to their participation. I chose to study early childhood and first grade in particular because of the lack of existing studies on early childhood school discipline disparities at the time. I was also interested in contributing to the understanding of how these disparities emerge in early childhood.

Between September 2016 and June 2017, I visited the school at least three times per week for four hours per visit, conducting observations of nine teachers and four classroom assistants in the school’s four first-grade classrooms. These observations took place across a wide variety of school settings, such as the classroom, the lunchroom, the playground, and field trips. I spent eight weeks total, or over 100 hours, observing each class, including two consecutive weeks before beginning my observations of the next class. Observing each classroom for at least six visits in a row allowed the teachers and students to acclimate to my presence more quickly compared to a weekly or biweekly visit. It also allowed me to understand what a typical week looked like for teachers and students.

When I began the project, I intended to engage with literature on the cultural and behavioral styles of Black boys because I was interested in how their behavioral styles might shape academic and disciplinary issues (Ferguson 2001; Hale 1986; Hilliard 1992; Morris 2005). Upon spending some time in the school, however, it became apparent that the behaviors of Black and White boys were remarkably similar. As a result, I narrowed my approach to systematically documenting (via ethnographic jottings) all incidents of misbehavior by the boys in the study that either I or the teacher identified and observing how teachers responded or did not respond. I also took notes on the teachers’ routine disciplinary practices to get a general sense of their approaches to discipline. After each visit to the school, I recorded my observations as detailed field notes within 24 hours.

Throughout the study, I took the role of a participant-observer, helping with class activities and interacting with students and teachers. Although it was impossible to be seen as an insider by the children, I avoided being seen as authoritarian by not engaging in any disciplinary actions. I sought to interact with the children in a way they might view me as an older sibling. As prior studies have noted (e.g., Van Ausdale and Feagin 2001), children often exhibit a desire for attention from adults in this role by talking to, sitting next to, reading with, or playing with them on the playground.

I had to balance this role with the expectations of teachers who sometimes elicited my help with enforcing the rules. As a Black man, I was particularly cognizant of depictions of Black men as disciplinarians (Brockenbrough 2015) and how this perceived role might shape the research process. When I became aware of this expectation, I made it clear to the teachers I would not discipline students or intervene in any situations where students were breaking the rules unless serious harm was evident. I explained that as a researcher, I was primarily interested in the children’s behaviors and interactions with teachers; being seen as a disciplinarian would interfere with the goals of the study. The teachers understood and positioned me as a “helper” within the classroom.

I also had concerns as to whether my presence in the classroom, as both a Black man and a researcher, might affect teachers’ interactions with students. I recognized that my positionality might limit trust building with the mostly White, female teachers. I worried that teachers might feel I was being critical of them and their interactions with Black boys, especially at the beginning of the study. By having informal conversations with teachers and helping in the classroom, I was able to build rapport and trust. One benefit of prolonged ethnographic studies is that participants get used to your presence, which reduces its effect on their behavior.

In difficult situations where students expected me to intervene in interactions with their peers (e.g., tattling), I referred the child to the teacher. At the beginning of the study, children often looked at me when they broke the rules. These situations were much easier to handle than the tattling scenario because I would simply look away without engaging in any disciplinarian gesture or action. After the first few weeks of the study, the children no longer worried about their behaviors around me, and I received fewer requests for disciplinarian interventions from both teachers and students.

I manually coded hundreds of pages of data from my field notes for analytic themes. My analysis began with open coding and writing monthly code memos to gauge what observations stood out to me in the field and to connect those observations to the relevant theoretical and empirical literature (Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw 2011; Glaser and Strauss 2000). I then identified broad analytic themes related to my research questions, such as child misbehavior, teacher watching, reprimand, and punishment. Through focused coding, I further narrowed these themes to child noncompliance, child ignoring teacher, child not paying attention, teacher yells, teacher confines child, and teacher gives a warning (Emerson et al. 2011). I paid particular attention to disconfirming evidence (Freeman et al. 2007; Lareau 2015), actively searching for instances when teachers did not notice the misbehaviors of Black boys or exhibited patience when reprimanding Black boys.

Findings

In the following sections, I describe teachers’ racialized disciplinary practices in interactions with Black and White boys and how teachers’ differential practices with boys reproduce inequalities in their school experiences. I found evidence of racialized disciplinary practices in teachers’ surveillance practices, engagement with boys’ behaviors, and responses to noncompliance.

Differential Surveillance

My data show teachers engaging in differential surveillance practices of Black and White boys across school contexts. A surprising but consistent theme I identified was that teachers closely monitored Black boys even when White boys occupied the same spaces. Black boys were singled out and monitored for “rough play” behaviors even when White boys were participating in the same behavior. The following example comes from my observations on the playground:

A group of boys are playing on the “watchtower” end of the jungle gym. The tower is about 4ft x 4ft, so it is a very tight space. Two of the boys are Black—Zaleeq and Karim—and four are White—Joshua, Charles, Warren, and Ethan. The boys are on the tower, playfully pushing one another around and yelling. Charles is the only one that is not on the tower but rather is on the green net that is connected to the tower. Charles climbs the net and hangs on while he tugs Zaleeq’s shoe. Zaleeq, bumping into the other boys, hops on one leg and pulls his leg from Charles who tries to hold on. Teacher Raven [Black woman] looks up at them from over by the swings and yells, “Karim! No pushing!” All the boys stop and look over at her, still bumping into each other. She walks towards them, looking up, “I’m watching you, Karim! Play nice!” The boys continue screaming, pushing, and bumping into each other. Teacher Raven says, “Zaleeq, not so rough! I won’t tell you again!” Zaleeq stops pushing and frowns at her.

Although both Black and White boys were playing rough in this situation, the teacher only singled out Karim and Zaleeq, letting the two Black boys know she was watching them. Boonstra (2021) shows that teachers closely monitor Black boys, but the finding that teachers make Black boys aware they are being watched is a new and interesting addition. In my observations, teachers took a more active, stricter approach to monitoring Black boys and their behaviors. On the playground, teachers routinely and actively looked for Black boys to misbehave and alerted them through comments like “I’m watching you.” In contrast, surveillance was not a feature of the everyday playground experiences of the White boys in the study.

I found similar patterns in the classroom. While looking at an individual child or group of children, teachers would informally tell me they “have to watch” or “keep an eye on” certain children. Through my observations, it became apparent the students they referenced were Black boys. The teachers also made sure the students knew they were being watched in the classroom. During math time one day, I observed this interaction:

All the students are sitting in the middle of the classroom in several rows facing the back of the class towards the projector and screen. Teacher Gabriela [White woman] calls out, “Hey! You three! . . . Hey!” Several students turn around. “Kevin, Saleeq, and Jaylon! Quiet! I’m watching you. . . . Quiet!” The three Black boys, sitting next to each, were whispering to each other, leaning against one another, and giggling. They look back at her with their eyes wide, as if they are shocked or scared, and turn back around.

In telling students they are “watching” them, teachers let the students know they should be on their best behavior. My data suggest teachers made racialized choices about whom to watch, almost always referring to Black boys. Being under regular surveillance made it exceedingly difficult for Black boys to get away with any sort of misbehavior.

Teachers also created formal systems that made it easier to closely monitor Black boys, often in the form of containment strategies that restricted Black boys to a certain area of the classroom or playground. Formal strategies to monitor Black boys were commonplace on the playground, where many children are running around. The following excerpt, recorded while I walked around the playground, illustrates teachers’ containment strategies:

Teacher Anna [White woman] asks me in a bit of a panic, “Where’s Daniel?” I, sensing her worry, look around and respond, “I don’t know.” I continue to look around. She quickly twists her head and turns, looking around the playground for Daniel [Black boy]. She quickly walks over and asks the two playground assistants, Stacy and Vanessa, “Where’s Daniel? Have you seen Daniel?” Both look around, shaking their head, and responding no. Teacher Anna yells, “Daniel!” She spots Daniel over by the wooden playpen; he is running back toward her. She firmly says to him, pointing, “Daniel, you can’t be over there . . . I told you; you have to be over here! In this area . . . !” She waves her hand to her right by the basketball court area where she first asked me where Daniel was. Daniel, with a slight smirk, nods his head yes, and runs away. Teacher Anna looks at me like she is frustrated and shakes her head. She walks towards me, “I have to keep an eye on him. He can’t play with all of the kids. He can choose two friends to play with and they have to play over there [pointing], where I can see them.”

This containment was not limited to the playground. Teachers used similar strategies in the classroom by having Black boys sit in seats close to the teacher’s desk away from the other students. Over the course of my study, I did not observe any situations where teachers contained White boys in certain areas of the playground or classroom.

Differential Engagement

Another key mechanism leading to disparate disciplinary experiences for Black and White boys was teachers’ differential engagement when dealing with misbehavior. I found that teachers frequently engaged with and reprimanded Black boys for their behaviors but did not acknowledge or engage White boys for the same behaviors. Prior work suggests teachers respond with punitive practices to Black students’ misbehaviors and positive practices to similar behaviors from White students (Boonstra 2021; Freidus 2020; Gansen 2021). My study goes one step further, finding that teachers routinely did not acknowledge or engage with the misbehavior of White boys in any way, let alone using positive disciplinary practices. Compared to Black boys, White boys more easily evaded teacher reprimands.

During a typical class period, many children “misbehaved” by being off task, fidgeting with something in their hands, or playing with a classmate. Teachers often ignored these behaviors or lectured the entire group, but sometimes a teacher engaged and singled out a particular student, calling the student out by name and giving them some sort of reprimand. One example of such singling out occurred when three Black boys were playing on the carpet during Teacher Colin’s (White man) music class:

Yaheem, David, and Akeem [Black boys] are rolling around and laughing on the square carpet to my right. The rest of the class sits around the big circular rug in the middle of the class in a disorganized circle. Most talk to their friends nearby, moving around in place, while Teacher Colin tries to instruct the group on what they are doing today. As usual, the class is somewhat chaotic. He notices the three boys out of place and yells over to them, “David, Akeem, and Yaheem! Not today! You are supposed to be over here,” pointing at the carpet. The boys look over for a second while continuing to roll around and laugh on the carpet. They mostly ignore him. Teacher Colin stops what he is doing and walks over to the boys. He tells them that he is, “not going to have this today! I’ll send you all to the meditation room or I can call your parents!” Akeem and Yaheem stop rolling around and crawl over to the circular carpet, though they are still laughing.

The other students look over, watching what’s happening. Many are laughing. Ahmed, one of the students, yells, “It’s not funny!” David continues to roll around and giggle on the carpet away from the other students. Teacher Colin walks to the classroom phone at the front of the class by the door. He picks up the phone and dials a number. “Can someone come get David please? He is disturbing my class. It is also Akeem and Yaheem, but I think they’re going to pay attention. I just need someone to get David. He’s not listening and disrupting my class. . . . Okay. Thank you.” He hangs up the phone. While he was on the phone, David crawled back over to the circular carpet with everyone else. Teacher Colin walks back to his chair at the front of the class.

Although it is possible Teacher Colin took the appropriate measures to punish David for being “defiant,” most of the class was loud during this time. Among the teachers in the study, Teacher Colin was generally more permissive when it came to student behavior. As a result, most children did not look at Teacher Colin while he was talking, instead chatting, giggling, or playing with their friends. It was three Black boys, however, especially David, who activated Teacher Colin’s frustrations and were labeled disruptive. Even Teacher Colin, a more permissive teacher, exhibited authoritarian practices with Black boys. After this interaction, the school counselor came to get David, and Teacher Colin attempted to continue the class. About 10 minutes later, I observed two White boys playing in front of me during the lesson:

The class is singing about ways to say hello in different languages. Most of the class is half singing the song and half laughing, joking, and dancing with their friends. Teacher Colin sings and plays the guitar at the front of the circle. Jared and Oliver [White boys] are away from the carpet a few feet in front of me. They are playing with imaginary guns [using their thumb and index finger], shooting each other. Jared says, “Pow! Shot you in the nuts!” He laughs. Oliver quivers on his back in fake pain, “Ahh my nuts!” The two continue this game for a while, sometimes pulling each other’s arms and pushing off to “shoot” the other one. Teacher Colin doesn’t look their way. Neither do the other students. They continue playing, rolling around on the floor until the song ends. After a while, they scoot back to the carpet.

Jared and Oliver were off the carpet about four feet away from where Yaheem, David, and Akeem were rolling around earlier, yet Teacher Colin failed to intervene; no one was reprimanded or sent out of the class this time. Both groups of boys were playing during a lesson, which was against classroom expectations, yet the White boys were hitting each other and yelling expletives, whereas the three Black boys were only rolling around and giggling. These two observations clearly demonstrate how even within the same class period, teachers differentially engaged with Black and White boys’ behavior. Throughout my time in the classrooms, teachers complained to and “lectured” the entire class about their poor behavior, yet Black boys were routinely singled out. Black boys could not defy classroom rules to the same extent as similarly behaving White boys.

It is crucial to note that although teachers varied in how authoritarian or permissive they were in general, the pattern of differential engagement was not unique to any teacher or classroom. I observed similar patterns in the regular classrooms and special subjects. Teachers quickly noticed Black boys’ behaviors while ignoring similar behaviors from White boys. Even when White boys’ blatant misbehavior occurred in plain sight, teachers ignored them, allowing the misbehavior to continue. Take, for example, this excerpt from my field notes when heading back upstairs to the classroom following a bathroom break:

Teacher Ricki [White woman] holds Warren’s [White boy] hand. She holds the door with her right hand while she holds Warren’s hand with her left. While several children are walking past through the doorway entering the stairwell, Warren playfully sticks out his foot and tries to kick them, “Psshh!” He mostly misses but sticks his foot out farther to try to hit one of them. He hits Allison gently with his foot. Allison jerks to her left, looking at Warren with scorn, “Ouch!” She continues walking through the doorway. Teacher Ricki doesn’t say anything to him, as he giggles and continues to try to kick one of the students, “Pssh!” Warren and Teacher Ricki follow behind the rest of the class, who wait at the top of the stairs for her.

This incident clearly illustrates teachers’ permissive disciplinary practices with White boys. Teachers frequently held children’s hands to prevent them from engaging in any misbehavior and to keep them in their sight. Given that Warren was clearly in Teacher Ricki’s sight and had been separated from the class for monitoring, it is surprising that he was not reprimanded for his misbehavior. Even in the rare instance where a teacher was actively monitoring a White boy, she did not engage with his misbehavior. I found no such examples of Black boys engaging in misbehavior in plain sight of a teacher, such as when holding their hand, without reprimand. Teachers’ racialized disciplinary practices with Black boys emphasized strict obedience, and teachers reprimanded Black boys when they were farther away from a teacher. This discrepancy speaks to the ways surveillance characterizes Black boys’ school experiences.

Differential Responses to Noncompliance

Teachers’ differential surveillance of and engagement with Black and White boys demonstrate the unequal disciplinary experiences of these students. White boys were easily able to avoid reprimands and punishment because of teachers’ racialized practices, whereas Black boys had a more challenging time avoiding teacher reprimands and punishments. Even when teachers reprimanded White boys, racialized patterns were apparent in their disciplinary practices. Teachers exhibited patience and leniency with White boys who were noncompliant but unwavering harshness with Black boys. These differences were especially apparent when the boys did not immediately do what the teacher said or when they challenged the teacher’s authority.

Because of the school’s punitive disciplinary culture, children were expected to quickly comply with teachers’ instructions, such as to sit properly in their seats or be quiet, when they were reprimanded for bad behavior. Both Black and White boys commonly resisted teachers’ directions, but teachers’ responses in these situations were racialized. One day while the class was getting ready to watch a movie on a big flat-screen television on top of a black cart, I observed this interaction:

Asaad [Black boy] pulls his chair from the back of the classroom where his assigned seat is, up to the center of the classroom, in line with the TV, and sits down. The children were only instructed to move their chairs a few feet away from their tables and face the TV. Teacher Gabriela [White woman] notices Asaad and calmly says, “Asaad, move back to your spot, please. I did not call you to come up here. Move back.” She turns around to press play on the DVD player. Asaad stays put, just staring at her as if he didn’t hear her. Teacher Gabriela turns around, sees that Asaad is still sitting in the same spot, and immediately starts yelling, “Move your chair right now!” She walks towards Asaad, pointing back at his table, “I said move back! Now! Right now!” Asaad’s face frowns up and it looks like he is about to cry. He furiously pushes his feet against the ground, moving his chair backward without looking back. On his way back he bumps into Alexis’s chair. Asaad, visibly angered, quickly turns around, picks up his chair, and moves it to his normal spot.

Teachers routinely used a harsh tone when Black boys did not immediately comply with directions, illustrating the authoritarian nature that characterized their disciplinary practices with Black boys. After becoming angered or saddened, the boys eventually complied with the teachers’ orders in these situations. In addition to using a harsh tone, teachers also resorted to use of physical force for Black boys who did not immediately comply with their orders, gently but physically moving the boys to get them to do what they wanted, such as in this observation from my field notes:

Loyal [Black boy] is at the table behind his assigned table, leaning over on the table on his forearms, talking to Zaleeq [Black boy]. I cannot hear what they are saying but Teacher Lisa [White woman] notices him and calls him in a stern but calm voice, “Loyal! Back to your seat! Loyal . . . .” Loyal turns around for a second to look at Teacher Lisa, turns back around, and continues talking, ignoring her. The teacher walks over to him and grabs his shoulders with both hands, gently turning him around and guiding him back to his seat, and says, “Back to your seat.” Loyal smirks as she moves him to his seat.

In contrast, teachers used a suggestive tone, negotiation, and patience to get noncompliant White boys to obey their instructions rather than harsh directives or physical force. Accordingly, teachers’ interactions with White boys who challenged their authority were often lengthier. This type of interaction is exemplified in the following observation of a teacher’s interaction with a White boy during reading period one morning:

Nicholas [White boy] fluctuates between spinning around on the colorful carpet by the bookshelves and fidgeting with the books. The rest of the students are at their tables waiting for Teacher Ricki [White woman]. Some quietly whisper to each other while others sit quietly, focusing on the teacher. Teacher Ricki is hooking up the projector to the TV and she doesn’t notice Nicholas until after she is finished. She looks over and says calmly, “Nicholas, please sit down.” Nicholas, now sitting on the floor pulling out books from the shelf, ignores her. The teacher looks away, back towards the rest of the class, and begins introducing today’s reading activity and worksheet. Nicholas does not go back to his seat. Instead, he gets up, spins around for a bit again then fumbles through more books. A few moments later, Teacher Ricki notices him again and calmly says, “Nicholas.” He looks back at her with a smirk. “Please sit down,” she says.

Nicholas and Teacher Ricki continued with this back and forth a few more times before Teacher Ricki gave Nicholas a warning and he went back to his seat. As in this excerpt, teachers exhibited patience and leniency with noncompliant White boys: They were calm, polite, and gave them multiple reminders. Teachers typically did not stop what they were doing to discipline White boys, whereas they did with Black boys. Instead of demanding strict obedience from White boys and using a harsh tone and physical force as they did with Black boys, teachers instead politely requested behavior modifications. These teacher-student interactions adhere to the racial patterns Voigt et al. (2017) found in their study of police officers’ interactions with Black and White motorists. Police officers used more respectful language with White motorists compared to Black motorists, and they gave more agency to White motorists. Teachers similarly gave more agency to White boys by being more permissive with them than with Black boys.

In addition to being more patient and lenient, teachers were also more playful when interacting with White boys who challenged their authority. Take, for instance, this observation while heading out for recess:

The students are heading out with Teacher Raven [Black woman] for recess, lining up in the hallway along the way in single file. Jacob [White boy] is at the front of the line next to Teacher Raven, who is facing the students. She tells Jacob, “You haven’t had a good day today, Jacob, you have 2 minutes.” She was referring to taking two minutes away from Jacob’s recess time. Earlier, Jacob had been walking, and sometimes skipping, around the class during math when he was supposed to be at his table. Jacob playfully responds with a slight smirk, “1 minute!” Teacher Raven looks down at him indifferently and replies, “2 minutes, Jacob.” “1 minute,” Jacob quickly responds again. “Okay Jacob, 5 minutes,” replies Teacher Raven in a snarky voice. “1 minute,” says Jacob. He has a big smile on his face, looking up at her. Teacher Raven shakes her head, “5 minutes, Jacob,” and tells the rest of the class to follow her downstairs. She looks over at me and shakes her head with a chuckle, then turns around, pushes the purple door behind her open, heads through the doorway, and leads the children down the stairs.

Teachers expected students would comply with their orders, but both Black and White boys challenged their authority at times. When this happened, Black boys were yelled at or physically forced to comply, whereas teachers were patient and even playful with White boys, such as Teacher Raven playfully going back and forth with Jacob about how much time was to be taken from his recess. Throughout the study, I did not observe any cases where disobedient White boys were harshly yelled at by a teacher, highlighting teachers’ racialized practices, particularly in terms of language use and tone. I did find examples where teachers gave Black boys the same leeway as White boys, but in the same day, Black boys could go from being ignored for misbehavior to being yelled at to being negotiated with to being yelled at once again. Disobedient Black boys’ experiences were often characterized by irregularity as opposed to the regularly permissive nature of White boys’ disciplinary experiences. Moreover, the affect teachers gave off during interactions with White boys was more lighthearted; interactions with Black boys appeared to be given more weight because teachers’ affect was strict and punitive.

Conclusions and Discussion

This article extends the literature on race and school discipline by utilizing an ethnographic approach to illustrate how teachers’ racialized disciplinary practices lead to the unequal disciplinary experiences of Black and White boys in early childhood. The finding that teachers engage in racialized disciplinary practices addresses previous researchers’ calls to better understand what differential treatment looks like in schools (Gregory et al. 2010; Owens and McLanahan 2020). I highlighted three racialized disciplinary practices—differential surveillance, engagement, and responses to noncompliance—that produce disparities in the school discipline experiences of young Black and White boys. Overall, teachers engaged in authoritarian practices in their disciplinary interactions with Black boys and permissive practices with White boys.

Related to previous social psychology (Gilliam et al. 2016) and ethnographic (Boonstra 2021; Gansen 2021) research, my results show how teachers’ routine surveillance of Black boys characterizes their day-to-day school experiences. I extend analyses of the role of surveillance in producing discipline disparities, showing how surveillance is used not just to monitor particular students but rather as a broader set of practices. I found that teachers both alerted Black boys they were being monitored and created formal systems to monitor them. Teachers regularly engaged with “misbehaving” Black boys and singled them out for their behavior, but they did not do so with White boys who exhibited similar behaviors. The relative invisibility of White boys made it easier for them to get away with misbehavior compared to the hyper-visible Black boys, reproducing inequalities in the boys’ disciplinary experiences. Even when teachers did reprimand White boys for behavior, they did so in ways that demonstrated patience and leniency. Teachers tended to be harsher and more punitive with Black boys.

This article is relevant to scholars interested in the role of schools as socializing agents. Historically, class-based research has given much attention to the link between school interactions, socialization, and social reproduction (Anyon 1980; Bowles and Gintis 2011; Giroux and Penna 1979; Golann 2015; Willis 1981). However, schools also serve as a crucial socializing agent in the U.S. racial system (Bonilla-Silva 2015; Lewis 2003). This article identifies an early and subtle form of racial socialization: socialization into the existing racial hierarchy through routine disciplinary interactions in early childhood. My study highlights how racial socialization occurs indirectly through student-teacher interactions or lack thereof. Racialized disciplinary experiences may have implications for how boys learn what it means to be a Black boy or a White boy in a racialized society. My study suggests White boys experience more chances to avoid punishment compared to Black boys. Previous research indicates these disciplinary experiences affect how students are labeled “good” or “bad” by teachers and peers (Ferguson 2001; Gansen 2021). Authoritarian disciplinary practices may socialize Black boys into a broader sense of racial inferiority and contribute to a negative self-image, whereas permissive discipline may socialize White boys into a sense of racial superiority, entitlement, and privilege. These divergent disciplinary experiences in early childhood may affect boys’ future attitudes toward school and their academic trajectories and contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline (Mittleman 2018; Pyne 2019).

These findings also have implications for schools attempting to eliminate racial discipline disparities. In response to (1) data on racial disparities, (2) the negative consequences of exclusionary discipline, and (3) the work of advocacy groups, the federal government, many state governments, and some school districts have begun efforts to reduce racial disparities in school discipline, including data collection, funding for programmatic interventions, and requiring school districts to produce plans to reduce disciplinary disparities (Gregory, Skiba, and Mediratta 2017; Ispa-Landa 2018; Welsh and Little 2018). Research suggests reform efforts have been successful at reducing the use of exclusionary discipline overall but not the disparities between racial/ethnic groups (Gregory et al. 2017; Ispa-Landa 2018; Welsh and Little 2018). Scholars have argued that the lack of progress is due to school districts’ use of race-neutral strategies (Carter et al. 2017; Gregory et al. 2017; Welsh and Little 2018). If a primary driving force in racial disparities in school discipline is the differential treatment of students by race/ethnicity, the fact that schools are not consciously addressing such discrimination could explain why the overall use of punitive measures has declined yet racial disparities persist. Schools must use a race-conscious approach to reduce the overrepresentation of Black students in school discipline (Carter et al. 2017; Gregory et al. 2017; Welsh and Little 2018). The current study suggests that addressing teachers’ racialized disciplinary practices, including differential surveillance, engagement, and responses to noncompliance, is one potential race-conscious intervention.

My findings also relate to social inequality in domains beyond schools. In its most essential form, this article demonstrates how everyday interactions reproduce racial inequalities. Moving beyond the role of specific disciplinary practices to understand teachers’ broader disciplinary approaches allows us to see connections to racialized interactions in other social institutions. A recent study of policing, for example, demonstrates how police exhibit less respect toward Black motorists compared to White motorists (Voigt et al. 2017). Everyday interactions can have important consequences for an individual’s life chances, social relations, and especially in the case of policing, whether someone lives or dies.

This study is not without limitations. Although I compare the disciplinary experiences of Black and White boys, it remains to be seen how these processes might work for other racialized groups, such as Asian American or Latinx students, and for girls. Previous research has found much heterogeneity in teacher perceptions and school experiences among Asian and Latinx students (Irizarry 2015; Kao, Vaquera, and Goyette 2013; Nguyen et al. 2019; Turney and Kao 2009). Relatedly, the intersecting role of social class is unclear in the literature. Gansen (2021) found that middle-class Black boys were disproportionally disciplined compared to their White peers, but there is a need for research that explores similarities and differences in the disciplinary experiences of working-class and middle-class Black boys. Future research should gauge how the intersections of race/ethnicity, phenotype, parental national origins, generational status, or social class may shape children’s disciplinary experiences.

Research also demonstrates that teachers’ perceptions of Black girls differ drastically from their perceptions of White girls (Morris 2007; Zimmermann 2018). Morris and Perry (2017) find that the suspension gap between Black girls and White girls is larger than the gap between Black boys and White boys. Examining how teachers’ approaches to discipline with Black and White girls might be both similar to and different from this study’s findings for Black and White boys will enrich our current understanding of racialized school discipline.

Finally, this article does not include teacher interview data. I focused on teachers’ disciplinary approaches, but the data cannot tell us why teachers engage in these racialized approaches to discipline. Theories of race and boyhood and previous studies of racialized discipline suggest teachers view Black students through a “problem” lens and White students as more innocent (Ferguson 2001; Freidus 2020); future research should further explore where these perceptions come from.

Students’ early educational experiences have long-lasting effects on their academic and social trajectories (Alexander, Entwisle, and Olson 2014; Farkas 2003; Hamre and Pianta 2001), so it is important to understand how race and racism shape children’s earliest school experiences. My research suggests Black and White boys’ disciplinary interactions with their teachers create disadvantages for Black boys and advantages for White boys, reflecting the larger culture of anti-Black racism and white supremacy (Collins 2005; Diamond and Gomez 2023; Ferguson 2001; Hatt 2012; Smiley and Fakunle 2016). The racialized patterns of discipline I identified show how even for students as young as six years old, schools perpetuate existing social and educational inequalities.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I thank Annette Lareau, Tukufu Zuberi, Kayla Prieto-Hodge, Nora Gross, Sherelle Ferguson, Yi-Lin Chiang, Peter Francis Harvey, Rita Harvey, Hyejeong Jo, Tyler Baldor, Aliya Rao, Erin McDonnell, Amy Langenkamp, Abigail Ocobock, Elizabeth McClintock, Rory McVeigh, and Anna Haskins for their helpful feedback on earlier versions of this article. I also thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their thorough and insightful comments. Lastly, I am grateful for the teachers, students, staff, and parents who participated in the larger study.

Research Ethics Statement

Research protocol was approved by the University of Pennsylvania Institutional Review Board. All human subjects gave their informed consent prior to their participation in the research, and adequate steps were taken to protect participants’ confidentiality.

ORCID iD

Calvin Rashaud Zimmermann

Author Biography

Calvin Rashaud Zimmermann is the I. A. O’Shaughnessy Assistant Professor of Educational Studies in the Department of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. He is also a faculty member of the Center for Research on Educational Opportunity (CREO). His research focuses on understanding how systemic racism shapes the early school experiences of children.

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