The Politics of Institutional Change: Historical Institutionalism and the Case of School Discipline

• In Event: New Perspectives on the Roles of Institutional Actors in Education Reform

Abstract

This paper explores the bureaucratization of American school discipline as a case of institutional change initiated, supported and propelled forward by local actors. The discussion contributes to a growing body of scholarship that employs institutional theory as a tool for understanding school constancy and change, and builds upon recent theoretical developments in the broader field of institutionalism. I demonstrate that in the United States, control over discipline shifted from school-site educators to centralized authorities in the decades following World War II, largely in response to political pressures exerted, at different historical moments, by teachers, students, local community members, and principals. Today’s controversial “zero tolerance” discipline policies are the legacy of these earlier, incremental changes in the organization of school discipline.

Author

• Judith R. Kafka, Baruch College - CUNY