Achievement- or Discipline-Oriented Attitudes: Racialized Discipline and Heterogeneous Black Student Attitudes Toward Teachers

• In Event: 66.079 - Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: 66.079-8 - Inequality: Race/Ethnicity and Gender

Abstract

One understudied component of oppositional culture theory is the proposition that Black students perceive discriminatory treatment by teachers, which, along with their awareness of discrimination in broader society, produce negative schooling attitudes. Using interview and observation data of 45 Black students of varying social class and academic backgrounds and their teachers, I find that, in a diverse high school characterized by racialized discipline and stratification, Black students are very much aware of high discipline rates. Yet, these students differ in how they interpret discipline as racist by drawing up achievement- vs. discipline-oriented stances toward teachers. This study highlights the importance of understanding heterogeneous academic and disciplinary positions as part of school organizational context, if we are to examine Black student attitudes.

Author

• Melanie Jones Gast, DePaul University