Exclusion and Identity Production in U.S. Public Schools

• In Event: Roundtable Session 33
  In Roundtable Session: The Complexities and Intersections of Dis/ability Identity in Political and Educational Contexts

Abstract

Exclusion is the standard practice for maintaining order and increasing efficiency in U.S. schools and classrooms. Although frequently framed as a logical response to particular student characteristics, excluding particular bodies works to define the boundaries of what a “good student” or “normal child” should be. This paper will use a critical post-structuralist lens to examine the way that exclusion has historically constructed, and continues to construct identities in and organizes U.S. public elementary and secondary schools in order to maintain current societal power structures. In particular, this paper will examine how schools remove, segregate, and sift out students whose bodies and behaviors do not conform to dominant cultural ideals.

Authors

• Laura Vernikoff, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Michael Wilson, Teachers College, Columbia University