"Goodness as Property": A Critical Thematic Synthesis of the "Good Behavior Game" 1969–2019

• In Event: Reframing the Narrative: Deconstructing Assumptions Behind Special Education Policies and Practices

Abstract

The Good Behavior Game is a classroom management strategy introduced in 1968 by Harriet Barrish, Muriel Saunders and Montrose Wolf. The GBG has been called a “universal behavioral vaccine” (Embry, 2002) and has been used to “solve” social ills from children who will not eat vegetables to drug addiction. This study is a systematic review of 85 GBG studies. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how the sheer volume of recent replication studies or publications related to the GBG (ten just in 2019) represents a sustained (and expanding) market investment in the complementary ideologies of ‘goodness’ and ‘smartness’ as properties that work in tandem to reinscribe an ideology of Whiteness (Broderick & Leonardo, 2016; Leonardo & Broderick, 2011).

Author

• Robin Roscigno, Rutgers University