Moral Authority and School Discipline: Cultural Scripts for Disciplinary Approaches and Notions of Insubordination

• In Event: 34.071 - Educational Opportunities and Culture Across Time and Space

Abstract

School discipline is a topic wrought with moral issues around ways to impart societal norms onto youth. The trouble is, whose norms are schools prepared to transmit and what kinds of conflicts are school personnel prepared to address when norms run counter to students’ families and cultures?
Drawing on a three-year ethnographic- and interview-based study of two middle through high schools in two cities, this proposal focuses on the role of moral authority in conceptualizing and enacting school discipline. Discipline is defined as setting and enforcing clear expectations. The work focuses on student behaviors teachers deem most problematic; how those behaviors are perceived among teachers and students; and under what conditions teachers decide to enact disciplinary measures.

Author

• Jessica Lipschultz, New York University