Abstract
In Unequal City: Race, Schools, and Perceptions of Injustice, Dr. Carla Shedd situates the urban school at the crossroads between race and place, arguing that modern urban high schools have become extensions of the carceral state and “powerful engines of social stratification” (p. 159). She presents an empirically grounded analysis based on interview and observational data collected at four Chicago public high schools that represent a variety of student bodies and neighborhood statuses. One sees how Unequal City is a worthy recipient of the C. Wright Mills Award in its portrayal of the role of state-sponsored control in youths’ maturational transformations, and how the militarization of public schools grooms black and Hispanic students for their seemingly inevitable interactions with police and, for many, corrections officials.
Shedd introduces the topic of relative deprivation to situate her analysis. Shedd discusses how Chicago’s charter-school movement resulted in the closure of dozens of neighborhood schools. At the same time, school desegregation in Chicago outpaced residential desegregation. As a result, many minority youth in poor and working-class neighborhoods now travel long distances to and from schools in neighborhoods with tremendously different appearances and customs. This journey takes them through neighborhoods far better than their own, exposing them to the contrast between their living arrangements and those of the “haves”. Shedd acknowledges that crossing racial, social, and geographic boundaries can benefit adolescents by exposing them to new situations; however, one cannot help but feel for the youngsters plucked from familiar territory and ferried to institutions full of students, teachers, and security personnel who have little in common with them. Schools, Shedd explains, are the locus of children’s and youths’ earliest lessons in navigating new, often daunting social situations. This is where students learn about authority and are taught how to respond to the orders of those above them in the hierarchy. For disadvantaged students, however, schools may be as much a preparation for jail as for college or the workplace. Schools are also ground zero for the normalization of authorities’ mistreatment of black and Hispanic youth, especially males.
Shedd levels a critical eye at the supposition that racially mixed schools are a step toward harmonious race relations. Shedd’s student interviewees point out that schools are “diverse, but definitely not integrated” (p. 47) and “diverse [but] divided” (pp. 51–52). Shedd finds much of the fault of the mixed-race schools (Lincoln Park and Payton Prep) to be in the mismatch between low-income students who commute to school and higher-income youth who live near the school and can easily walk there. This dichotomy perpetuates the groups’ “otherness” to one another. Many of Shedd’s respondents in the predominantly minority schools (Tilden and Harper) report taking comfort in a school filled with people who look like them. While low-income minority students’ minimal exposure to the world outside their neighborhoods is concerning, there is merit in temporarily sparing them the psychological angst of knowing they are at or near the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.
The enhanced security and surveillance in public schools is a phenomenon that Shedd dubs the “school disciplinary superstructure”. In the securitized school, students are acculturated into being scanned, having one’s clothing scrutinized for dress-code compliance, and being stripped of their names and reduced to numeric codes. Chicago public schools adhered to a zero-tolerance policy that significantly increased the number of suspensions, expulsions, and arrests of students. Black students were grossly overrepresented among the students subject to formal action, most of which were misdemeanors.
Shedd finds that students in relatively peaceful schools like Lincoln Park and Payton Prep feel boxed in. At the more disorderly Tilden Academy and Harper High, the students see the disciplinary superstructure as not going far enough to protect their safety, although they doubt how effective any security measure could ever be. Some claim that weapons can be fashioned out of common school items, a vision chillingly similar to prison violence.
Perhaps the most disturbing element of the disciplinary superstructure is its socializing impact on disadvantaged youths of color. At Tilden and Harper, students are patted down upon entrance. The discomforting image of a teenager of color standing prostrate while a uniformed security officer runs his or her hands over the youth’s body in the name of “making sure you’re not up to something” gives one pause to ponder if Chicago public schools are preparing their minority charges for a lifetime of “up against the wall, put your hands where I can see them” commands. Relatedly, the infiltration of the universal carceral apparatus into public schools signals a presumption of guilt—youth are taught that adults do not trust them to stay out of trouble. This is most damaging to disadvantaged minority youth, whose school experiences combine with the police scrutiny they receive in their daily lives. There seems to be no point at which a black or Hispanic teen (particularly a male) is not under some form of state-sponsored supervision.
Moreover, because few youths ever actually do perpetrate a serious misdeed, school security guards exaggerate small transgressions. It is difficult not to draw parallels between schools’ obsession with minor infractions and that which plays out on the streets of urban neighborhoods where police employ order-maintenance approaches. The pattern of overcriminalization spurred by broken windows appears to have permeated schools.
To further develop the argument about schools as part of the carceral state, the book also addresses students’ perceptions of and experiences with the police. Shedd’s low-income minority respondents attending high-resourced schools compare the officers working the areas in which their schools are located to those who patrol their own neighborhoods. Disadvantaged minority youths’ sense of injustice is heightened by the realization that there are alternatives to the bizarre combination of heavy-handedness and neglect characterizing much inner-city policing, but that respectful and responsive policing is reserved for residents of “nice” neighborhoods. Furthermore, Shedd characterizes unpleasant police contacts as symbolizing the end of childhood. Youths’ sense of being protected by their young age melts away when officers treat them like criminal suspects. The normalization of rudeness and mistreatment is also apparent when police replicate the roughshod manner in which many school security officers speak to and even physically handle minority students. Teens of color learn in school and on the streets that their bodies are subject to the passing fancies of any uniformed, badge-sporting government employee who might or might not possess a moral compunction against unwarranted verbal or physical aggression.
I found Unequal City compelling and well written. Shedd avoids sweeping accusations against school and criminal-justice officials, but does not back down from her central theses about how schools are unique in their ability to raise disadvantaged youths’ awareness of their relatively low social and economic position and to prepare them for a life of control. A critic could charge her with bias or a lack of objectivity, but in my experience, “objectivity” in race studies is usually code for being “white-centric”. Shedd challenges readers to become intelligent skeptics. A truly inclusive society cannot be accomplished without schools that educate and nurture all children. With the help of works like Unequal City, we are poised to create urban schools that break down social barriers rather than create more of them.