Expert answer:Is school an equitable place?
Solved by verified expert:For this paper, you’ll be utilizing the following three texts: “Schools, Prisons, and Social Implications of Punishment,” by Pedro Noguera; “The Complexity of Identity,” by Beverly Tatum; and chapters 1 and 2 of Whistling Vivaldi, by Claude Steele. Consider how the arguments of those texts might be applied to the educational system, specifically as it pertains to equity. Additionally, please reflect on your own personal experiences and observations. Based on your readings, experiences, and observations, do you believe school is an equitable place? Has what you read, seen, and experienced supported or disproven the ideas presented in Noguera, Tatum, and Steele’s texts?Ultimately, there are two questions to address for this paper.1) Is school an equitable place? (That is, is school a place that gives all students, regardless of identity and categories of identification, a fair and equal chance at educational and future workplace success?)2) Ultimately, do the same power structures that are prevalent in society influence the way students, from kindergarten through college/university, are educated in the United States?Guidelines:Your paper must be 4.5-6 pages in length.Your paper must be in MLA format.Your paper must integrate the three texts discussed above as well as your own experiences and/or observations.You must make (and support) your own, original argument
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Noguera
Rethinking Disciplinary Practices
Pedro A. Noguera
Schools, Prisons, and Social
Implications of Punishment:
Rethinking Disciplinary Practices
Throughout the United States, schools most frequently punish the students who have the greatest
academic, social, economic, and emotional needs.
An examination of which students are most likely
to be suspended, expelled, or removed from the
classroom for punishment, reveals that minorities
(especially Blacks and Latinos), males, and low
achievers are vastly overrepresented. The enactment of zero tolerance policies related to discipline in school districts has contributed to a
significant increase in the number of children who
are being suspended and expelled from school. This
article explains why this has occurred and puts
forward an alternative approach to discipline that
is aligned with the educational mission of schools.
N
OT LONG AGO , I was taken on a tour of an
elementary school in northern California by
an assistant principal. The purpose of my visit was
to learn more about the ways this school was implementing a grant designed to increase the provision of social services to students, most of whom
came from a low-income, economically depressed
neighborhood. As we came to the end of the tour
and walked toward the main office, the assistant
Pedro A. Noguera is a professor of education at Harvard
University.
principal shook his head and pointed out a boy, no
more than 8 or 9 years old, who was standing outside the door to his office. Gesturing to the child,
the assistant principal said to me “Do you see that
boy? There’s a prison cell in San Quentin waiting
for him.” Surprised by his observation, I asked him
how he was able to predict the future of such a
young child. He replied “Well, his father is in prison, he’s got a brother and an uncle there too. In
fact, the whole family is nothing but trouble. I can
see from how he behaves already that it’s only a
matter of time before he ends up there too.” Responding to the certainty with which he made these
pronouncements, I asked “Given what you know
about him, what is the school doing to prevent him
from going to prison?”
I could tell by his flustered response that the
assistant principal was surprised by my question.
He did not think it was his responsibility to keep
the child from following a path that would lead to
prison. In fact, he informed me that he was preparing to put this child on an indefinite suspension
from school. This was an extreme form of punishment used in a small number of cases for children
with persistent behavior problems. It allowed the
school to remove difficult children to be schooled
at home while still collecting funds from the state
for their average daily attendance. Under the plan,
work would be sent home and, occasionally, a
teacher or counselor would make visits to monitor
THEORY INTO PRACTICE , Volume 42, Number 4, Autumn 2003
Copyright © 2003 College of Education, The Ohio State University
341
THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Autumn 2003
Classroom Management in a Diverse Society
the academic progress of the student. I asked if he
thought that such a plan would work for this child
given what he had said about the difficulty of his
situation at home (the child was being raised by an
elderly grandmother). He responded by telling me
that there was nothing more the school could do.
“Kids like him just can’t be helped. They take up
so much of my time and keep teachers from serving the needs of other children who are here to
learn. It may not be the best thing for him, but
right now, it’s the best thing for the school.”
I begin with this vignette because I believe
that while it may seem extreme, it is indicative of
the ways many schools handle the discipline of
troubled students. Throughout the United States,
schools most frequently punish the students who
have the greatest academic, social, economic, and
emotional needs (Johnson, Boyden, & Pittz, 2001).
In most schools and districts, an examination of which
students are most likely to be suspended, expelled, or
removed from the classroom for punishment, reveals
that minorities (especially Blacks and Latinos),
males, and low achievers generally, are vastly overrepresented (Meier, Stewart, & England, 1989). An
even closer examination of disciplinary practices reveals that a disproportionate number of the students who receive the most severe punishments are
students with learning disabilities, students in foster care or under some form of protective custody,
and students who are homeless or on free or reduced-price lunch (Skiba, 2000a).
Often, it is the needs of students and the inability of schools to meet those needs that causes
them to be disciplined. Children who are behind
academically and who are unable to perform at a
level commensurate with grade-level expectations,
often engage in disruptive behavior, either out of
frustration or embarrassment (Hirschi, 1969). Likewise, children who suffer from abuse or neglect,
and children who are harassed by their peers because they are different, are sometimes more likely to act out and get into trouble (Singer, 1996).
Too often, schools react to the behavior of such
children while failing to respond to their unmet
needs or the factors responsible for their problematic behavior. In so doing, they contribute to the
marginalization of such students, often pushing
them out of school altogether, while ignoring the
342
issues that actually cause the problematic behavior. Schools also punish the neediest children because in many schools there is a fixation with
behavior management and social control that outweighs and overrides all other priorities and goals.
Understanding why many schools have a preoccupation with control is essential to understanding
why it is that certain children are more likely than
others to be targeted for punishment. This is the central focus of this article, and such a focus is particularly pertinent because available evidence suggests
that the adoption of zero tolerance policies related to
discipline and order by school districts across the
United States has contributed to a significant increase
in the number of children who are being suspended
and expelled from school (Skiba, 2000b).
What is it about the way schools throughout
the United States operate—without any apparent
orchestration or uniform code—that results in the
consistency of these patterns, and their recent acceleration? And why is it that the drive for order
and safety has resulted in the neediest and most
disadvantaged students being the ones most likely
to be punished?
By attempting to answer these questions and
analyzing some of the factors that influence the
approach schools take toward maintaining order
and control over students, I hope to make the case
that alternative methods for producing safe and
orderly environments are possible.
Social Control and the Social
Contract of Schooling
Disciplinary practices in schools often bear a
striking similarity to the strategies used to punish
adults in society. Typically, schools rely on some
form of exclusion or ostracism to control the behavior of students. Chastising a child who has misbehaved or broken a rule with a reprimand, or
placing a child in the back of the room or out in
the hallway for minor offenses, are common disciplinary practices. For more serious infractions—
fighting, defiance, cutting class—removal from the
classroom or removal from the school through
suspension or even expulsion serve as the standard
forms of punishment employed by schools throughout the United States. Increasingly, behavior that
violates the law (e.g., drug use or drug trafficking,
Noguera
Rethinking Disciplinary Practices
assault against a teacher or another student, etc.)
results in intervention by law enforcement and
school sanctions. Consistent with the way we approach crime in society, the assumption is that safety and order can be achieved by removing “bad”
individuals and keeping them away from others
who are presumed to be “good” and law abiding.
Not surprisingly, those most frequently targeted for
punishment in school often look—in terms of race,
gender, and socioeconomic status—a lot like smaller versions of the adults who are most likely to be
targeted for incarceration in society (Singer, 1996).
As social institutions charged with the task
of preparing and socializing young people for adult
roles, schools generally reflect many of the characteristics of the society in which they are located.
As is true in society, an implicit social contract serves as the basis for maintaining order in
schools. In exchange for an education, students are
expected to obey the rules and norms that are operative within school and to comply with the authority of the adults in charge. Like the social
contract that serves as the basis of order in most
democratic societies (Durkheim, 1961; Rawls,
1971), students are expected to relinquish a certain
degree of individual freedom in exchange for receiving the benefits of education. For the vast majority of students, this arrangement elicits a
relatively high degree of compliance. Despite surveys that suggest a growing number of teachers
and students fear violence in school, schools in the
United States are generally safe places (Pollack,
1999). Even though children significantly outnumber adults, students largely conform to adult authority and through their compliance, make it
possible for order to be maintained.
Not surprisingly, this arrangement tends to
be least effective for students who are not receiving the benefits of an education. Once they know
that the rewards of education—namely, acquisition
of knowledge and skills and ultimately, admission
to college, and access to good paying jobs—are
not available to them, students have little incentive to comply with school rules. As the vignette I
described at the beginning of this article illustrates,
at a relatively young age students may have so
many negative experiences in school that they soon
begin to recognize that education is not working
for them and will not provide them with access to
socially desirable rewards. Such students are more
likely to be labeled defiant, maladjusted, and difficult to deal with (Brookover & Erickson, 1969),
and they are more likely to internalize these labels
and act out in ways that match the expectations
that have been set for them (Johnson, 1995). Because they violate school rules more often, they
are more likely to be punished and subjected to
various sanctions. A large body of research has
shown that labeling and exclusion practices can
create a self-fulfilling prophesy and result in a cycle of antisocial behavior that can be difficult to
break (Casella, 2001; Gottfredson, 2001). As they
get older, the rule violations perpetrated by such
students often increase in frequency and severity,
resulting in a steady escalation in the sanctions
that are applied. For many, the cycle of punishment eventually leads to entanglement with law
enforcement and the criminal justice system. This
is why the assistant principal’s prediction about
the future of the misbehaving youngster in his
charge is disturbingly prophetic; administrators like
himself often play a significant role in matriculating young people from school to prison.
Students who get into trouble frequently are
typically not passive victims; many of them understand that the consequences for violating school
rules can be severe, particularly as they grow older. However, as they internalize the labels that have
been affixed to them, and as they begin to realize
that the trajectory their education has placed them
on is leading to nowhere, many simply lose the
incentive to adhere to school norms.
This dynamic is illustrated quite vividly in
Willis’ Learning to Labor (1977), a study carried
out in a decaying industrial city in northern England.
The troublesome youngsters he refers to as the
“lads” boldly flaunt school rules, harass their teachers and peers, and even break the law with reckless abandon. They do so with full knowledge that
their antisocial behavior will guarantee their failure in school, largely because they have already
concluded that their education will not lead them
to college or middle-class jobs in the future. Willis
argues that the boys’ behavior constitutes more than
just “acting out.” He suggests that their blatant
noncompliance is rooted in an active rejection of
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THEORY INTO PRACTICE / Autumn 2003
Classroom Management in a Diverse Society
middle-class norms. The students understand that their
education will lead them to the factories where their
parents have worked, and they deliberately engage in
behavior that will ensure their educational failure.
Willis focuses his analysis on students in secondary schools, but chances are that signs of trouble for the lads were present during their earlier
school experiences. In my many years of teaching
and working with schools, I have seen this phenomenon played out repeatedly. Schools struggle
to maintain order and discipline, while a relatively
small number of recalcitrant students wreak havoc
in classrooms and hallways until they are pushed
out or drop out of school on their own accord.
Before they exit, the administrators charged with
handling discipline engage in a futile game of cat
and mouse with them. They desperately try to apprehend, contain, and control incorrigible students
even as the students conjure up new ways to violate school rules. The repeated violations suggest
that the students understand completely that the
social contract underlying their education has been
broken. By their actions it appears they have decided to make the lives of adults and other students miserable as their way of obtaining retribution
for a failed education.
Discipline and the Social
Purposes of Education
To break the cycle of failure and restore the
social contract that underlies schooling, I believe
it is necessary to revisit the purpose of education.
In American society, schools carry out three primary functions. First, schools sort children based
on various measures of their academic ability and
place them on trajectories that influence the economic roles and occupations they will assume as
adults. In so doing, they play a role in determining
who will lead and manage corporations and government, and who will be led and managed by those
in charge (Bowles & Gintis, 1976; Oakes, 1985).
Second, schools play an important role in socializing children by teaching the values and norms that
are regarded as central to civil society and the social order (Apple, 1982; Durkheim, 1961). They
do this by teaching social conventions (e.g., obedience to authority) through implicit and explicit
means and by instilling a sense of what it means to
344
be “normal” in students (Gottfredson, 2001). Finally, schools operate as institutions of social control, providing an important custodial function with
respect to the care and movement of children. Operating as surrogate parents, schools exercise considerable authority over students, and many of their
basic civil rights are suspended while they are in
school (Casella, 2001).
Each one of these functions is important and
central to the operation of most schools, but without
the third—maintaining order and control—the other
two functions cannot be easily accomplished. Without a relatively orderly environment where the authority of adults is respected and rules are followed,
it is difficult to sort and socialize students. Of course
there are some schools where adults experience considerable difficulty in maintaining order and where
control of students is tenuous at best. Such places are
generally regarded as educational wastelands and
schools of last resort, and placement in these schools
constitutes the ultimate sorting and socializing on the
path to nowhere (Devine, 1996).
While important in their own right, each of
these functions also serves an overlapping and related purpose. By sorting children on the basis of
their presumed academic ability or behavior, children learn whether they are in on the educational
pipeline and develop expectations regarding where
they will end up on the social hierarchy. Some
paths lead to success and prosperity, or at the minimum, economic security. Other paths lead to deadend jobs, low wages, and subordination. The
socialization process that accompanies the sorting
makes it possible for students to accept the educational trajectory set for them and to see their future adult roles as positions they have earned. For
this reason, there is surprisingly little objection to
the sorting process because students come to believe that their grades, test scores, and behavior have
created a future for them that they deserve.
Yet, the fact that the process seems to work
does not mean that there isn’t any resistance. In
fact, most often it is the students who understand
that school is not working for them, and who know
that education will not lead to admission to college or access to a promising career, who typically
cause the most trouble and disturbance in school.
With the rewards of education largely unavailable
Noguera
Rethinking Disciplinary Practices
to them, we must realistically ask ourselves why
we would expect that students would comply with
the rules and adhere to school expectations? When
the social contract of schooling is broken or no
longer operative for certain students should we be
surprised that they become more likely to disrupt
the educational process?
Experience shows that the answer is no. Although it is almost never stated as official policy,
school officials are generally aware that students
on an educational path that leads to nowhere will
cause more trouble, and will therefore have to be
subjected to more extreme forms of control. This
is especially true for schools that serve disproportionate numbers of academically unsuccessful students (e.g., alternative schools for students with
behavior problems, some vocational schools, and
many inner-city high schools). Such schools often
operate more like prisons than schools. They are
more likely to rely on guards, metal detectors, and
surveillance cameras to monitor and control students, restrict access to bathrooms, and attempt to
regiment behavior by adopting an assortment of
rules and restrictions. Although such measures are
more likely to be imposed in high schools, I have
observed a number of elementary schools that have
adopted similar measures. In any educational setting where children are regarded as academically
deficient, and where the adults view large numbers of them as potentially bad or even dangerous,
the fixation on control tends to override all other
educational objectives and concerns.
Of course, carrying out the three functions of
schooling—sorting, socializing, and social control—
is not what attracts most educators to the field of
education. Most are drawn to teach and work in
schools because they believe education should serve
a higher moral purpose. Many are drawn by ideals
like those espoused by Rousseau or Dewey, who envisioned schools that would instill values that result
in enlightenment, intellectual growth, compassion, and
appreciation for human dignity (Fishman & McCarty,
1998; Rousseau, 1974). Others are inspired by the
possibility that education can serve as a means to
empower and open doors of opportunity to those who
have been disadvantaged by poverty, racism, and injustice. Noble ideals such as these catalyzed support
for public education in the early 19th century
(Katznelson & Weir, 1985) and continue to generate support for education among the American public today (Metropolitan Life, 2001).
The majority of my students who seek to become teachers and the vast majority of teachers I
have worked with did not enter the profession because they wanted to serve as sorters and gatekeepers. They also did …
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