Guilty by Association: How Gendered Learning Interferes With Constructions of Innocence and Educational Liberation

• In Event: Holding Kids Captive and Imprisoning Education: Abolitionist Research on Youth Incarceration and Carceral Schooling

Abstract

Overview and Methods:

This paper investigates the gendered language, teaching, and learning practices in socioemotional learning at two of Los Angeles County’s Juvenile Court Schools. The research was conducted at two youth prison sites -- one with students assigned male at birth, and one with students assigned female at birth. Data was collected by a team of researchers through individual interviews with students and staff, classroom and school site observations, and focus groups with educators. Throughout the research, we have noticed a significant trend in gendering language and behavior across the two carceral education sites. Because of this trend, this paper was written to answer the following questions:

1) How are the common perpetuations of gendered language and behavior in socioemotional learning sustained in youth prison educational contexts?
2) How does the perpetuation of gendered language and behaviors impact the development and experiences of incarcerated youth?

Framework:

The urgency in the focus on socioemotional learning and gendering stem largely from theories and literature that argue the detrimental impacts of gender policing, carceral feminism, deficit-based socioemotional and trauma focused care, and the lack of an intersectional focus in the care of the student population (Davis, 2003; Law, 2014; Ginwright, 2018; Meiners, 2015). In this paper, the operating understanding of socioemotional learning is as defined by Dena Simmons (2020), as the “life skills that support people in experiencing, managing, and expressing emotions meaningfully.” Moreover, this paper pays significant attention to the intersections of gender and associations with childhood innocence (Meiners, 2015), development of gender and identity (McWilliams and Penuel, 2017), and how the carceral environment perpetuates of cishetero-patriarchal norms (Drabinski & Harkins, 2013). It is essential to understand that the theories and literature used to guide my work serve to provide a solid foundation but with malleable guidelines that are meant to both interact with my research and support it (Ravitch and Carl, 2016). From this understanding, the process of interactions between theory and research are continuous and free forming, in order to buttress the evolutionary process of research that seeks to better understand systems as they are as well as visualize systems as they could be.

Findings:

This paper expands on these key findings:

Students’ identities are assumed to be fixed or constant, and learning environments and curriculum operate on this assumption, preventing children from experiencing their own unique development
The prison system uses gender associations to rob youth of their childhood identities; for example, treating children as though they are “men,” and the system has an expectation that “men” act a certain way.

The gender expectations at the youth prisons perpetuate cishetero-patriarchal norms and perceptions of identity, funneling students into a toxic system that lacks critical thinking, opportunities, and authentic development

Significance:

This research is necessary and significant in order to better understand the role of perpetuations of gendered language in socioemotional learning and its impacts on childhood innocence, youth incarceration, and the educational experiences of our students furthest from educational justice.

Author

• Sam Blanchard, University of California - Los Angeles