Punishment as Violence: Girls of Color and School Discipline Practices

• In Event: 49.024 - Overpoliced and Underserved: Voices of Girls of Color and LGBTQ Youth on Discipline and Punishment

Abstract

Objectives: Within the past few decades, studies have explored the ways that harsh school discipline practices punish boys of color through exclusionary practices including suspensions, expulsions and arrests (Ferguson, 2001). This paper examines the ways that schools are multi-layered structures of punishment, particularly for girls of color. While Foucault (1977) argues that “the art of punishing” within the context of disciplinary power is to “normalize” subjects, this paper contends that girls of color are punished beyond the purpose of “normalization.” Based upon a case study of a school in northern California, students’ narratives demonstrate that they are excessively punished. This paper argues that under the pretense of “violence prevention,” school discipline policies and practices enable institutionalized forms of racial and gendered violence against girls of color.

Theoretical Framework: Radical Black feminism (James, 2000) is the guiding framework for this study. Radical Black feminism centralizes the role of the state, its policies and practices, at the center of analyses of racial and gender violence. Black feminist scholar Joy James (1996) argues that when it comes to race, discipline and punishment in the United States, “Greater obedience is demanded from those whose physical difference marks them as aberrational, offensive and threatening”(26). Women of color are excessively punished in order to reproduce social inequalities (Richie, 2012). Radical Black feminism helps to understand the multilayered structure of punishment that shapes the girls’ experiences with school punishment.

Methods and Data: This study uses case study method and in-depth interviews. Qualitative data is based upon interviews of 20 young female students of color from a high school in Northern California. Referred by school administrators, each student met the following criteria: 1) self-identified as female of color 2) experienced referrals or suspensions.

These questions guide the study:

• What is the disciplinary structure at the case study site including the federal, state and district policies that shape the school’s practices?
• What experiences did girls of color have with the discipline policies and practices at the case study site?
• How did these experiences intersect with the girls’ experiences with violence outside of school?

Conclusions: Findings show that there are formal and informal mechanisms that are used to criminalize and punish girls of color. The girls were subject to multiple layers of policing and punishment for normal behaviors (Ness, 2010) and regardless of whether or not an infraction was committed (Richie, 2012). Findings demonstrated that girls of color are subject to sexual harassment, police brutality and racial profiling as forms of discipline (Jones, 2010). Their narratives suggest that their experiences with punishment were for the purposes of racialized and gendered disciplinary power (Foucault, 1977) and gratuitous violence (James, 2007).

Significance: This study—its theoretical framework, methodologies and findings—encourages education, race and gender scholars to examine the ways that school discipline is multilayered. The formal and informal practices, are not only exclusionary, but are forms of racial and gendered violence against girls of color.

Author

• Connie Wun, University of Illinois at Chicago