Racialized and Gendered Constructions of Ability and Behavior

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

In this symposium, we bring together five papers that examine how school processes create and reinforce racialized and gendered perceptions of students' abilities and behaviors. The symposium expands on existing understanding of how students’ abilities and behavior are constructed by examining the roles of multiple actors, and social factors. While all the papers are tied together by a focus on the racialization and/or gendering of ability and/or behavior, papers also examine nativity and social class, and how these identities and positions intersect. Moreover, the papers ask how different actors and organizational contexts shape perceptions of students’ abilities and behavior, focusing on the roles of teachers, school counselors, parents, and students, and how school context and instructional practice matter.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Sociology of Education

Chair

• Rachel Elizabeth Fish, New York University

Papers

• What Drives Racial/Ethnic Disparities in School Discipline? - Jayanti Owens, Brown University

• Looking for Trouble: How Teachers' Disciplinary Styles Perpetuate Racism in Early Childhood - Calvin Rashaud Zimmermann, University of Notre Dame

• Inequality Regimes and Racialized Perceptions of Girls' Ability and Behavior - Rachel Elizabeth Fish, New York University

• Teachers' and Counselors' Perceptions of Academic Abilities Among Minority Students in New York City - Mercy Agyepong, New York University

• Looking Smart: Race and Academic Ability in an Untracked Middle School - Alexandra J. Freidus, University of Connecticut

Discussant

• Amanda E. Lewis, University of Illinois at Chicago