Discipline as White Property: Color-Evasiveness and Preschool Discipline

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Twelve
  In Roundtable Session: Decolonizing and (Re)Imagining Our Field Through Critical Theories, Research, and Practices (Table 7)

Abstract

During the 2017-2018 school year, Black children comprised 18.2% of the total preschool enrollment, but 43.3% of children receiving one or more school suspensions and 38.2% of total preschool expulsions (CRDC, 2018). This study builds on existing research showing teachers’ beliefs and biases are possible factors that lead to punitive discipline in K–12 contexts (Gregory et al., 2010; Rocque & Paternoster, 2011), further developing understanding about racial disparities in preschool discipline. Using tenets of Critical Race Theory and Black Critical Theory, this qualitative study examined how whiteness has influenced preschool teachers’ discipline beliefs and practice. Findings suggested a foundation of upholding whiteness in pre-K environments through teachers’ beliefs of color-evasive ideology and practices of “treating all children the same.”

Author

• Michelle DeJohnette, Cal Poly Pomona
  Presenting Author