Animating Discipline Disparities through Debilitating Practices: Girls of Color and Inequitable Classroom Interactions

Abstract

Context

Girls of Color are overrepresented in school disciplinary actions based on subjectively judged, minor infractions. Studies have consistently shown that this exclusionary discipline has long-lasting impact on Girls of Color and their educational outcomes, including increased risk for pushout and involvement in the criminal legal system.

Focus of Study

We sought to uncover the processes that animate the statistics of overrepre-sentation of Girls of Color in disciplinary actions. Said differently, we sought to understand where, how, and why Girls of Color were being disciplined in schools. Using a Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) lens and centering the voices of Girls’ of Color, this empirical study was guided by the question, What mechanisms propel and dispel disciplinary inequities for Girls of Color?

Research Design

The qualitative research took place in a suburban school district in the Midwestern United States marked by increasing racial, cultural, and linguistic diversity. This was part of a larger two-year study that centered the voices of more than 50 Girls of Color, their families (11), and their teachers (11), exploring understandings of and experiences with school discipline disparities for Girls of Color. Data sources for the full project included interviews with Girls of Color (32), families (10), and teachers (8); focus groups (Girls of Color = 17; families = 3; teachers = 3); classroom and district event observations, Education Journey Mapping (21); and a Cartographer's Clinic. Data for this study focus on the interviews and focus groups with Girls of Color, working to center them as knowledge generators.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Our analysis revealed the ways in which discipline disparities were animated by inequitable academic and behavioral responses of teachers to classroom interactions, which we name debilitating practices. Further, Girls of Color embodied repositioning as ways of maintaining their integrity and individuality when experiencing academic and behavioral injustices. We conclude with major implications for school personnel: (a) academically, educators must reflect on how ability is distributed and withheld in the classroom along racialized and gendered lines, and (b) behaviorally, positive behavior supports should be imagined and implemented through a race and gender conscious lens. Though we focus on classroom interactions, we also understand that public schools, schools of education, and society all have a role to play in dismantling the school–prison nexus. However, classroom interactions continue to be identified as the source of disciplinary disparities in both quantitative and qualitative studies. Consequently, teachers have an opportunity to change their classroom practices to academically and behaviorally support Girls of Color.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adams

D. L.

, & Erevelles

(2016). Shadow play: DisCrit, dis/respectability, and carceral logics. In Connor

D. J.

Ferri

B. A.

, & Annamma

S. A.

(Eds.), Disability studies and critical race theory in education (pp. 131—144). Teachers College Press.

Ahram

Fergus

, & Noguera

(2011). Addressing racial/ethnic disproportionality in special education: Case studies of suburban school districts. Teachers College Record, 113, 2233—2266.

Annamma

S. A.

(2015). Whiteness as property: Innocence and ability in teacher education. The Urban Review, 47 2, 293—316.

Annamma

S. A.

(2018a). The pedagogy of pathologization: Dis/abled girls of color in the school-prison nexus. Routledge.

Annamma

S. A.

(2018b). Mapping consequential geographies in the carceral state: Education Journey Mapping as a qualitative method with girls of color with dis/abilities. Qualitative Inquiry, 24 1, 20—34. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800417728962

Annamma

S. A.

Anyon

Joseph

N. M.

Farrar

Greer

Downing

, & Simmons

(2016). Black girls and school discipline: The complexities of being overrepresented and understudied. Urban Education, 51, 1—32. doi:10.1177/0042085916646610

Annamma

S. A.

Connor

, & Ferri

(2013). Dis/ability critical race studies (DisCrit): Theorizing at the intersections of race and dis/ability. Race Ethnicity and Education, 16, 1—31. doi:10.1080/13613324.2012.730511

Annamma

S. A.

Jackson

, & Morrison

(2017). Conceptualizing color-evasiveness: Using Dis/ability Critical Race Theory to expand a color-blind racial ideology in education and beyond. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 20 2, 147—162. https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/13613324.2016.1248837

Annamma

, & Morrison

(2018). DisCrit classroom ecology: Using praxis to dismantle dysfunctional education ecologies. Teaching and Teacher Education, 73, 70—80.

10.

Anyon

Jenson

J. M.

Altschul

Farrar

McQueen

Greer

Downing

, & Simmons

(2014). The persistent effect of race and the promise of alternatives to suspension in school discipline outcomes. Children and Youth Services Review, 44, 379—386. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.06.025

11.

Baglieri

Bejoian

L. M.

Broderick

A. A.

Connor

D. J.

, & Valle

(2011). [Re]claiming “inclusive education” toward cohesion in education reform: Disability studies unravels the myth of the normal child. Teachers College Record, 113, 2122—2154.

12.

Bhattacharya

(2017). Fundamentals of qualitative research. Routledge.

13.

Birt

Scott

Cavers

Campbell

, & Walter

(2016). Member checking: A tool to enhance trustworthiness or merely a nod to validation? Qualitative Health Research, 26, 1802—1811. doi:10.1177/1049732316654870

14.

Blake

J. J.

Butler

B. R.

Lewis

C. W.

, & Darensbourg

(2011). Unmasking the inequitable discipline experiences of urban Black girls: Implications for urban educational stakeholders. Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, 43, 90—106. doi:10.1007/s11256-009-0148-8

15.

Brantlinger

Jimenez

Klingner

Pugach

, & Richardson

(2005). Qualitative studies in special education. Exceptional Children, 71, 195—207. doi:10.1177/001440290507100205

16.

Broderick

, & Leonardo

(2016). What a good boy: The deployment and distribution of “goodness” as ideological property in schools. In Connor

D. J.

Ferri

B. A.

, & Annamma

S. A.

(Eds.), DisCrit: Disability studies and critical race theory in education (pp. 55—67). Teachers College Press.

17.

Carter

P. L.

Skiba

Arredondo

M. I.

, & Pollock

(2017). You can't fix what you don't look at: Acknowledging race in addressing racial discipline disparities. Urban Education, 52 2, 207—235.

18.

Chesney-Lind

, & Jones

(2010). Fighting for girls: New perspectives on gender and violence. State University of New York Press.

19.

Cho

Crenshaw

K. W.

, & McCall

(2013). Toward a field of intersectionality studies: Theory, applications, and praxis. Signs, 38 4, 785—810.

20.

Collins

P. H.

(1990). Black feminist thought in the matrix of domination. In Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment (pp. 221—238). Unwin Hyman.

21.

Collins

P. H.

(2000). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge.

22.

Crenshaw

(1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 139—167.

23.

Crenshaw

K. W.

Ocen

, & Nanda

(2015). Black girls matter: Pushed out, overpoliced and underprotected. Columbia University Press.

24.

Davies

, & Harré

(1990). Positioning: The discursive production of selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 20, 43—63. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5914.1990.tb00174.x

25.

Eber

Sugai

Smith

C. R.

, & Scott

T. M.

(2002). Wraparound and positive behavioral interventions and supports in the schools. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 10, 171—180. doi:10.1177/10634266020100030501

26.

Epstein

Blake

, & González

(2017). Girlhood interrupted: The erasure of Black girls’ childhood. The Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality. doi:10.2139/ssrn.3000695

27.

Erevelles

, & Minear

(2010). Unspeakable offenses: Untangling race and disability in discourses of intersectionality. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies, 4, 127—145. doi:10.3828/jlcds.2010.11

28.

Erickson

(1986). Qualitative methods in research on teaching. In Wittrock

M. C.

(Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (pp. 119—161). Macmillan.

29.

Erickson

(2004). Demystifying data construction and analysis. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 35, 486—493. doi:10.1525/aeq.2004.35.4.486

30.

Evans-Winters

V. E.

, & Girls for Gender Equity. (2017). Flipping the script: The dangerous bodies of girls of color. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 17, 415—423. doi:10.1177/1532708616684867

31.

Fabelo

Thompson

M. D.

Plotkin

Carmichael

Marchbanks

M. P.

, & Booth

E. A.

(2011). Breaking schools’ rules. Council of State Governments Justice Center.

32.

George

J. A.

(2015). Stereotype and school pushout: Race, gender and discipline disparities. Arkansas Law Review, 68, 101—129.

33.

Gill

, & Erevelles

(2017). The absent presence of Elsie Lacks: Hauntings at the intersection of race, class, gender, and disability. African American Review, 50, 123—137. doi:10.1353/afa.2017.0017

34.

Gotanda

(1991). A critique of “Our Constitution Is Color-Blind.” Stanford Law Review, 44, 1—68. doi:10.2307/1228940

35.

Gregory

Skiba

R. J.

, & Noguera

P. A.

(2010). The achievement gap and the discipline gap: Two sides of the same coin? Educational Researcher, 39, 59—68. doi:10.3102/0013189X09357621

36.

Hannon

Defina

, & Bruch

(2013). The relationship between skin tone and school suspension for African Americans. Race and Social Problems, 5, 281—295. doi:10.1007/s12552-013-9104-z

37.

Harper

S. R.

(2015). Success in these schools? Visual counternarratives of young men of color and urban high schools they attend. Urban Education, 50, 139—169. doi:10.1177/0042085915569738

38.

Harris

(1993). Whiteness as property. Harvard Law Review, 106, 1707—1791. doi:10.2307/1341787

39.

Helms

J. E.

, & Merish

E. H.

(2013). How racial-group comparisons create misinformation in depression research. In Gómez

, & López

(Eds.), Mapping “race”: Critical approaches to health disparities research. Rutgers University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhwjx

40.

Hines-Datiri

, & Carter Andrews

D. J.

(2017). The effects of zero tolerance policies on Black girls: Using critical race feminism and figured worlds to examine school discipline. Urban Education. Online First. doi:10.1177/0042085917690204.

41.

Jolls

, & Sunstein

C. R.

(2006). The law of implicit bias. California Law Review, 94, 969—996. doi:10.15779/Z38BQ43

42.

Jones

(2009). Between good and ghetto: African American girls and inner-city violence. Rutgers University Press.

43.

Kennedy-Lewis

B. L.

, & Murphy

A. S.

(2016). Listening to “frequent flyers”: What persistently disciplinedstudents have to say about being labeled as “bad.” Teachers College Record, 118(1).

44.

Khalifa

M. A.

, & Briscoe

F. M.

(2015). A counternarrative autoethnography exploring school districts’ role in reproducing racism: Willful blindness to racial inequities. Teachers College Record, 117, 1—34.

45.

King

J. E.

(2004). Dysconscious racism. In Ladson-Billings

, & Gillborn

(Eds.), The RoutledgeFalmer reader in multicultural education (pp. 71—83). Routledge.

46.

Kingsland

S. E.

(2005). The evolution of American ecology, 1890-2000. JHU Press.

47.

Ladson-Billings

(1998). Just what is critical race theory and what's it doing in a nice field like education? Qualitative Studies in Education, 11, 7—24. doi:10.1080/095183998236863

48.

Leonardo

, & Broderick

(2011). Smartness as property: A critical exploration of intersections between whiteness and disability studies. Teachers College Record, 113, 2206—2232. https://www.tcrecord.org/content.asp?contentid=16431

49.

Lincoln

Y. S.

, & Guba

E. G.

(1985). Naturalistic inquiry. Sage.

50.

Lindsey

T. B.

(2018). Ain't nobody got time for that: Anti-Black girl violence in the era of #SayHerName. Urban Education, 53 2, 162—175.

51.

Lorde

(1984). Sister outsider. The Crossing Press.

52.

Losen

D. J.

, & Skiba

R. J.

(2010). Suspended education: Urban middle schools in crisis. Southern Poverty Law Center.

53.

Matsuda

M. J.

(1987). Looking to the bottom: Critical legal studies and reparations. Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review, 72, 30—164.

54.

Meiners

E. R.

(2011). Ending the school-to-prison pipeline/building abolition futures. The Urban Review, 43(4), Article 547. doi:10.1007/s11256-011-0187-9

55.

Miles

M. B.

, & Huberman

A. M.

(1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Sage.

56.

Miles

M. B.

Huberman

A. M.

, & Saldaña

(2014). Qualitative data analysis: A methods sourcebook. Sage.

57.

Milner

H. R.

(2013). Analyzing poverty, learning, and teaching through a critical race theory lens. Review of Research in Education, 37 1, 1—53.

58.

Mohanty

C. T.

(1989). On race and voice: Challenges for liberal education in the 1990s. Cultural Critique, 14, 179—208.

59.

Morris

E. W.

(2007). “Ladies” or “loudies”? Perceptions and experiences of Black girls in classrooms. Youth & Society, 38, 490—515.

60.

Morris

M. W.

(2012). Race, gender, and the “school-to-prison pipeline”: Expanding our discussion to include Black girls. African American Policy Forum.

61.

Morris

M. W.

(2016). Pushout: The criminalization of Black girls in schools. The New Press.

62.

Murphy

A. S.

Acosta

M. A.

, & Kennedy-Lewis

B. L.

(2013). “I'm not running around with my pants sagging, so how am I not acting like a lady?”: Intersections of race and gender in the experiences of female middle school troublemakers. The Urban Review, 45, 586—610. doi:10.1007/s11256-013-0236-7

63.

Nanda

(2012). Blind discretion: Girls of color & delinquency in the juvenile justice system. UCLA Law Review, 59, 1502—1539.

64.

National Women's Law Center and the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. (2014). Unlocking opportunity for African American girls. http://www.nwlc.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/unlocking_opportunity_for_african_american_girls_final.pdf

65.

Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education. (2016). A first look: Key data highlights on equity and opportunity gaps in our nation's public schools.

66.

Okonofua

J. A.

, & Eberhardt

J. L.

(2015). Two strikes: Race and the disciplining of young students. Psychological Science, 26 5, 617—624. doi:10.1177/0956797615570365

67.

Paris

, & Winn

M. T.

(2014). Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities. Sage.

68.

Payne

A. A.

, & Welch

(2010). Modeling the effects of racial threat on punitive and restorative school discipline practices. Criminology, 48, 1019—1062. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.2010.00211.x

69.

Peguero

A. A.

Bondy

J. M.

, & Shekarkhar

(2017). Punishing Latina/o youth: School justice, fairness, order, dropping out, and gender disparities. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 39, 98—125. doi:10.1177/0739986316679633

70.

Puar

J. K.

(2017). The right to maim: Debility, capacity, disability. Duke University Press.

71.

Rausch

M. K.

, & Skiba

R. J.

(2004). Unplanned outcomes: Suspensions and expulsions in Indiana. Center for Evaluation and Education Policy. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED488917.pdf

72.

Rausch

M. K.

Skiba

R. J.

, & Simmons

A. B.

(2005, April 11–15). The academic cost of discipline: The relationship between suspension/expulsion and school achievement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, QC, Canada.

73.

Reyes

J. A.

Elias

M. J.

Parker

S. J.

, & Rosenblatt

J. L.

(2013). Promoting educational equity in disadvantaged youth: The role of resilience and social-emotional learning. In Goldstein

, & Brooks

(Eds.), Handbook of resilience in children (pp. 349—370). Springer.

74.

Rodwell

M. K.

(1998). Social work constructivist research. Garland.

75.

Saldaña

(2013). The coding manual for qualitative researchers. Sage.

76.

Seidman

(2006). Interviewing as qualitative research: A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences. Teachers College Press.

77.

Sherman

, & Balck

(2015). Gender injustice: System-level juvenile justice reforms for girls. The National Crittenton Foundation. http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1987&context=lsfp

78.

Skiba

R. J.

Michael

R. S.

Nardo

A. C.

, & Peterson

R. L.

(2002). The color of discipline: Sources of racial and gender disproportionality in school punishment. The Urban Review, 34, 317—342. doi:10.1023/A:1021320817372

79.

SocioCultural Research Consultants. (2017). Dedoose (Version 7.6.6) [Computer software]. https://app.dedoose.com/App/?Version=7.6

80.

United States Government Accountability Office. (2018). K-12 education discipline disparities for Black students, boys, and students with disabilities (Report No. GAO-18-258) https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-18-258

81.

Vavrus

, & Cole

(2002). “I didn't do nothin”’: The discursive construction of school suspension. The Urban Review, 34, 87—111. doi:10.1023/A:1015375215801

82.

Wallace

J. M.

Jr.

Goodkind

Wallace

C. M.

, & Bachman

J. G.

(2008). Racial, ethnic, and gender differences in school discipline among U.S. high school students: 1991-2005. The Negro Educational Review, 59, 47—62. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ819980

83.

Wing

(Ed.). (2003). Global critical race feminism: An international reader. New York University Press.

84.

Wun

(2016). Against captivity. Educational Policy, 30, 171—196. doi:10.1177/0895904815615439

85.

Zion

S. D.

, & Blanchett

(2011). (Re) Conceptualizing inclusion: Can critical race theory and interest convergence be utilized to achieve inclusion and equity for African American students? Teachers College Record, 113, 2186—2205. http://works.bepress.com/bwolfe/16/