Implications of Zero-Tolerance Policies for Minority Urban Students Through Teachers' Voice

• In Event: 14.044 - Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: 14.044-21 - Enacting Social Activism, Challenging Zero Tolerance Policies, and Fostering LGBTQ Inclusion in Curriculum

Abstract

This research examines the implications of Zero Tolerance Policies (ZTP) on minority urban schools through the voices of urban teachers in Southcoast Massachusetts in which nine Southcoast teachers were interviewed to examine the relationship between ZTP and dropout rates among minority urban students and the relationship between these policies, crime, and the social construction of crime. Through these interviews, the researcher is able to replay the multiple voices of teachers’ as they express their view of ZTP and its implications. CDA was used to treat the data to allow for different perspectives focusing on social transformation through constitutive concepts of power, ideology, and critique. Teachers’ were unfamiliar with the concept of neoliberalism that stigmatized students sanctioned by ZTP.

Author

• Dominique A. Branco, New Bedford Public Schools