Jura Versus Outlaws: Deconstructing Binary Oppositions in Carceral Classrooms

• In Event: Teacher Knowledge and Workplace Learning

Abstract

Efforts to deconstruct the school-to-prison pipeline have been dominating academic discourse for a decade. What has not been explored in depth is the reality inside California’s carceral classrooms that still hold about 5,000 pupils on any one day and about 30,000 pupils over the course of the year. In this practitioner research study of a juvenile hall school, my findings identify these classrooms as a Foucauldian heterotopias, places outside of all places, bringing together the incompatible “jura” (police) and “outlaw” (criminal) cultures into a suspended space of possibility. Further, I identify the unique opportunity transformative educators have to turn a time intended for punishment into a time for liberation, if they can place themselves in a neutral zone.

Author

• Tatiana V. Harrison, San Francisco State University