Abstract
Dr. Monique W. Morris’ Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools presents important qualitative research on the process by which Black girls experience removal from the education system through the juvenile and criminal justice systems. The research and book focus on the intensive interview and focus group narratives of Black girls criminalized within the education system. While Morris focuses on the education system, the critiques and lessons Morris presents also offer an important framework for critiquing juvenile justice policy. Morris centers the voices of Black girls impacted by exclusion, surveillance, and infiltration of the criminal justice system into school environments. Through their narratives, the girls identify the failings of policies and practices inside and outside classrooms.
In Pushout, Morris highlights the major themes emerging from her qualitative research in each chapter: Black girls are “subjected to powerful narratives of their collective identity” that shape their educational experience; the voices of Black girls offer a critical understanding of the disparate impact of zero-tolerance policies; school policies and practices seek to “regulate their bodies in a learning environment”; the educational experiences in juvenile corrections programs mirror the exclusion, surveillance, and punitive experiences of Black girls in educational settings prior to confinement; and the need for better institutional support for the educational and career objectives of Black girls (Morris, 2016, pp. 13–14). Morris concludes the book by offering alternative frameworks for improving conditions and outcomes for Black girls in schools.
Three central themes emerge in Pushout: exclusion, surveillance, and the infiltration of the criminal justice system into schools. The Black girls in the book share experiences of exclusion within school, from school, and outside of school. Morris summarizes the Black girls’ experiences of school as a place of conflict, from students fighting in the hallways to teachers creating confrontation within the classroom. The girls’ interview narratives reveal conflict deriving from the girls’ assertion of agency amid attempts of institutional social control. The girls interviewed express that school fails to protect them and excludes them from opportunities. Conflict with other students, security guards, and teachers results in the exclusion of Black girls entirely, through dismissal, suspension, and expulsion, often facilitated by zero-tolerance policies.
The Black girls in Pushout share their paradoxical experiences of exclusion alongside their subjection to hyper-surveillance. Morris connects the surveillance of the Black girls to social control and oppression. The hyper-surveillance within the school setting includes security guards, teachers, and administrators that respond to the Black girls’ appearances, behaviors, and questions; their responses causing conflict rather than reducing it. Throughout the book, the girls narrate experiences in which their non-conformity is met with an attempt to control their behavior. Black girls who exercise agency in their own educational experience fall subject to disciplinary action. Morris emphasizes the role of educational institutions in the reproduction of oppression and shows how educational institutions consider the Black girls in her study “social deviants rather than critical respondents to oppression” (Morris, 2016, p. 11). Pushout depicts hyper-surveillance of Black girls in school that obstructs their critical-thinking and leadership skills and ultimately criminalizes these skills.
Morris depicts the infiltration of the criminal justice system into schools. Students walk through metal detectors to enter the school building, interact with security guards in the hallways, pass by police stations located in the school, and fall subject to the juvenile justice system for misbehaviors in the classroom. Zero-tolerance policies enable law enforcement responses to classroom behavior, creating the direct transfer of a student from the classroom into the juvenile justice system. Morris also critiques court orders addressing truancy; violations of court orders to attend school can result in juvenile detention, which further removes students from classrooms. Through the narratives of the Black girls in her study, Morris shows how the infiltration of the criminal justice system into schools removes the protective factor of education for Black girls.
Morris highlights identical patterns in classrooms within juvenile detention centers and criminal justice research narratives. Often, as Morris describes in the book, criminal justice and juvenile justice policy-making discussions exclude or masculinize the experiences of girls in these systems. Morris recommends centering the voices of Black girls and expanding the scope of inquiry on exclusion beyond long-term confinement facilities to exclusion through electronic monitoring, house arrest, and detention centers. The continual exclusion of Black girls from policymaking, decision-making, research, and programming reinforces the exclusion of Black girls within the educational setting and excludes their experiences with the juvenile justice system.
The final chapter of Pushout offers alternatives to zero-tolerance policies and the use of the criminal justice system in educational settings. The recommendations Morris presents in the final chapter can apply to improvements for juvenile justice policies and practices, in addition to educational settings. Morris emphasizes the need to center youth voices, particularly the voices of Black girls, in efforts to establish and implement policies impacting youth. The implementation of Positive Behavior Intervention Systems (PBIS) and restorative justice practices offer alternatives to addressing conflict within school settings, but also present frameworks for improving the way in which the juvenile justice system responds to youth behavior. As described by Morris, PBIS implements preventive and responsive pro-social behavioral modification to address disruptive behavior in schools. Restorative justice practices in schools respond to conflict by presenting an opportunity to repair harm done to the relationships in the school community through a collaborative process. Morris illuminates the opportunity to redefine safety through the recommendations she presents in the final chapter. Ultimately, Morris offers a vision for schools designed to achieve equity for Black girls, “where their learning spaces are places they are invited to critically engage, alongside educators, in the construction of their education and in the redemption of their lives” (Morris, 2016, p. 176). This paradigm shift can reframe the policies and practices throughout the juvenile justice system, alongside educational institutions.
