The School-to-Prison-to-Deportation Pipeline: Students, Teachers, and Administrators Navigating Educational Opportunity in the Context of Surveillance

• In Event: 523 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 04.The Role and Influence of Teachers: Session II

Abstract

There is a great deal of research that focuses on the effects of zero tolerance policies on schools and how schools can serve as pipelines to prison, particularly for low-income minority males. Additionally, there is research that indicates that contact with the criminal justice system can serve as a pipeline to deportation for undocumented immigrants. However, there is little research linking the two, or discussing school stakeholders’ (students, teachers, and administrators) awareness of this pipeline and their strategies concerning it. That is, we interviewed more than 200 recent immigrant students (those born outside the United States or whose parent[s] immigrated within five years before their birth) and more than 50 of their teachers and administrators in six different American cities in four different states. From these interviews and the concurrent fieldwork in their schools, we found that these stakeholders were able to identify this pipeline informally for us, and describe their actions to avoid it (students and some teachers) or, surprisingly, use the threat of it to remove “problem children” from the classroom (a few teachers and administrators). We also deliberately collected data in sanctuary (cities that do not share data on the documentation status of arrestees) and non-sanctuary cities because we expected that stakeholders would work harder to keep students away from the criminal justice system in non-sanctuary cities. As discussed in the paper, this hypothesis was somewhat supported, but general ignorance of the laws and distrust of law enforcement seemed to blur this distinction.

Authors

• Patricia Maloney, Texas Tech University

• SaunJuhi Verma, Rutgers University

• Duke W. Austin, California State University, East Bay