My Teacher Needs a Referral: Narratives From Black Girls on School Discipline Practices

• In Event: 30.066 - Educational Research and the (Re)Construction of Black Educational Opportunity in Public Discourse and Civic Action

Abstract

In October 2015 a Black girl from South Carolina was violently drug from her desk by a police officer for an act of “insubordination”. As the nation replayed the video coverage of the incident, much of the conversation revolved around how the student’s attitude contributed to the violence perpetrated against her. In debates about how America’s schools serve Black students the popular press frequently positions Black girls as responsible for their limited educational opportunities because they exhibit demeanors that do not match the institutional expectations of a “good” student. What results are discipline practices that lead to their being six times more likely to be suspended from school when compared to their white female counterparts. This disproportionate rate of punitive punishment often results in lower achievement and diminished life chances for these young women. Despite these staggering statistics, very few studies have explored the nature of disciplinary experiences of Black girls as they relate to their opportunities to succeed academically. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine school discipline practices and interactions in one high school for Black girls.

Given the complexity of understanding how race and gender uniquely shape the disciplinary experiences of Black girls, this study will employ Black feminist standpoint theory as a critical lens. This framework allows for the examination of racial and gender marginalization as inseparable and endemic to US institutions.

The data for this analysis was drawn from a 1-year ethnographic investigation of the experiences of Black female students in James High School. Data was collected through 600+ hours of participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and artifact collection. The analysis was guided by the principles of grounded theory in which the data was examined inductively within and across sources to create broad narratives capturing the overall experiences of the participants.

The analysis revealed that at James High, Black girls were more frequently disciplined than any other student group in the school. Most often they were involved in verbal disputes with teachers that resulted in citations for disrespect and insubordination. While on the surface the citations appear to confirm the narrative that Black girls’ demeanors are responsible for their diminished opportunities, a deeper look into the circumstances surrounding the disputes reveals a more nuanced story. There was grave inconsistency in how the labels disrespect and insubordination were applied, in nearly all of the incidents. Additionally, the Black girls felt the disrespect was mutual—teachers treated them with low regard which, in part, provoked their actions. However, given power dynamics within schools, only teachers’ assessments were granted legitimacy, which resulted in disciplinary consequences and the literal exclusion of the girls from classroom spaces. This exclusion created barriers to academic success, and led to feelings of alienation and disenfranchisement that further separated the girls from their school community.

The significance of this inquiry is the insight it provides into how their educational opportunities within educational institutions are being moderated through institutional policies, practices, and power relations, rather than individual deficit or shortcomings.

Author

• Alaina Neal, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor