Talking Emotional Safety: School Leaders and Language in a Chicago Public Schools School Safety Reform

• In Event: Examining the Discourse and Context of School Safety and Discipline

Abstract

This study examines language use of school leaders in a CPS safety reform which asked Chicago Public Schools high schools to redefine what school safety means to them with equal attention to physical, emotional, and relational safety, before voting to keep or retain their school-based police officers. Across high schools with vastly different neighborhood contexts and cultures, we find that school leaders talk about non-police solutions to behavior problems using an amalgamized script of emotional safety interventions, including restorative justice, mental health, and SEL. Simultaneously, they describe practices antithetical to emotional safety—punitive practices, racialized narratives about criminality, etc. We argue that school leaders wield politically powerful buzzwords as part of the performance required of them by the reform.

Authors

• Uma Blanchard, University of Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Alex Koenig, University of Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author