The Grammar of School Discipline in Alabama

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium examines how seemingly discrete school discipline policies and practices constitute a particular grammar: removal, resistance, and reform. Using multiple forms of data, the presenters detail a nuanced landscape of school discipline in Alabama and its anti-Black foundations. The removal of Black students can be traced to the antebellum constructions of Blackness. A focus on resistance centers the agency that students and practitioners exercise despite anti-Black removal. An exploration of reform efforts emphasizes that even the most well-intentioned and well-organized reforms are limited when the removal of students remains an option. The presenters end with an appeal to educational stakeholders to repair the harms that these anti-Black policies and practices inflict on students and communities.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 4: Policies, Mattering, and Praxis

Chair

• Cheryl E. Matias, University of Kentucky

Papers

• Moral Imperatives in Education Research: Racial Justice and Critical Whiteness - Cheryl E. Matias, University of Kentucky

• The First R of the Grammar of School Discipline: Removal - Nicholas Paul Triplett, University of North Carolina - Charlotte

• The Second R of the Grammar of School Discipline: Resistance - Benjamin T. Arnberg, Auburn University; Sean Forbes, Auburn University

• The Third R of the Grammar of School Discipline: Reform - Nanyamka Shukura, Southern Poverty Law Center

• The Potential of a Fourth R in the Grammar of School Discipline: Repair - Hannah Carson Baggett, Auburn University; Carey E. Andrzejewski, Auburn University

Discussant

• David O. Stovall, University of Illinois at Chicago