Explaining the "Highfliers" and the "Good Kids": Social Context and Educators' Discourses of Discipline Disparity

• In Event: 16.056 - Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: 16.056-10 - Examining the Examiners: Effects of the Assessment Discourse on and Through Teacher Work Effects of Teacher Practice

Abstract

This paper presents findings from a dissertation pilot study on school discipline conducted at a public middle school. I investigate two research questions: What discourses do educators use to explain, justify, and rationalize discipline disparities? How are these discourses related to those available in the surrounding social-political context? I draw on several categories of data: (1) quantitative, school discipline data (2) interviews with educators (3) newspaper articles. Preliminary findings suggest (1) teachers in this study employ a complex mixture of discourses to explain disparities and (2) these discourses show connections to the larger neoliberal education policy context in which school actors are embedded.

Author

• Kathryn Elizabeth Wiley, University of Colorado - Boulder