If You’re the Right Someone, You Too Can Change Laws: A Critical Race Theory Policy Analysis of Stakeholders Who Make School Discipline Policy

• In Event: Roundtable Session 100
  In Roundtable Session: Situating Critical Race Theory in Context

Abstract

Applying Lipsky’s (1980) framework of street-level bureaucracy to a critical race theory policy analysis I look at school discipline policies and the key policy stakeholders. In 2007, Utah discipline policies quietly shifted. This study seeks to explore the key players in policy making, and further how policy actors or stake holders can and do participate in policy making. Combined, the frameworks used in this study seek to unearth the sources of racialized bias embedded in discipline policies that lead to disproportionate disciplinary rates. The purpose of this research is to shed light on a policy-making process that goes unnoticed and the larger implications tied to the well- documented racially/ethnically disproportionate discipline rate of suspensions and expulsions for Chicano students.

Author

• Brenda Valles, University of Utah