72.021 - Learning From Ethnography: How We Make Change in Urban School Discipline

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

In recent years, scholars have argued that if we want to close the achievement gap, we must find ways to close the discipline gap. Since the 1990s, the use of punitive and exclusionary discipline has become widespread in urban schools, to the detriment of poor and minority students. As zero-tolerance policies are falling out of favor, how are urban schools reconsidering their practices and policies? In this panel, we bring together five urban school ethnographers, each with expertise in different disciplinary approaches, to explore why discipline gaps persist and what schools are doing to close them. This panel provides a rare opportunity to hear from researchers who have closely observed in zero-tolerance, no-excuses, Montessori, and restorative justice schools.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 4: Social Contexts of Educational Policy and Politics

Chair

• Joanne Golann, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College

Papers

• 20 Years Later: Zero Tolerance, School Policing, and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in School Discipline - Kathleen M. Nolan, Princeton University

• How Black and Latino Parents Perceive Discipline at No-Excuses and Public Montessori Schools - Joanne Golann, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College; Mira C. Debs, Yale University; Anna Weiss, Vanderbilt University - Peabody College

• "Living the Vision": Surfacing Dilemmas of Restorative Leadership - Sarah Melanie Fine, Harvard University

• Moving Away From Zero Tolerance: The Challenges Encountered by a New York City High School Implementing Restorative Approaches to Discipline - Sarah Lazarus Klevan, New York University

Discussant

• Garrett Albert Duncan, Washington University in St. Louis