Beyond Cultural Mismatch Theories: The Role of Anti-Blackness in School Discipline and Social Control Practices

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: School Discipline, Educational Fugitivity, and Restorative Practices

Abstract

Black students face hyper-disciplining and high levels of social control when they enter American schools. The cultural mismatch hypothesis attempts to explain this hyper-disciplining by arguing that the mostly White teaching force misinterprets the attitudes and behaviors of Black students, which leads to their hyper-disciplining. Using three critical ethnographic vignettes, this article shows that traditional scholarship around the cultural mismatch hypothesis ignores the structural presence of antiblackness in United States schools. The analysis indicates that the teacher misinterpretation of mismatched capital (the traditional cultural mismatch) is actually a racialized interpretation of both matched and mismatched capital coming from Black bodies. This racialized interpretation is guided by the logic of antiblackness endemic to American institutions.

Authors

• Rowhea M. Elmesky, Washington University in St. Louis

• Olivia Marcucci, Johns Hopkins University