Student Discipline and School Performance in the Era of Quantitative Measures

• In Event: 207 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 24. Disruptions and Discipline

Abstract

Economic inequality is supported and reinforced through schooling. “Hard times” usually have a bigger effect on under-resourced schools and this affects the lives of the students who attend them. In our days many schools have been declared as ineffective by state evaluating agencies and were closed.
Why do some schools transform into “bad schools?” Which processes affect this transformation and which critical areas need to be addressed by policy making/implementation? This paper examines student behavior as an effect of the technologies of governmentality and analyzes how student culture, over a five to ten year time span, may slowly change in ways that shape the reputation of a school, which in turn affects student registration and decisions for closing or co-location. This study is based on research that took place in a large, comprehensive New York City high school and it employs a qualitative research design. The analytical framework draws from anthropology and sociology.

Author

• Eleni Natsiopoulou, Columbia University