The Impact of School Punishment on the Racial Understanding and Educational Outcomes of Young Black Girls

• In Event: 4167 - Section on Children and Youth Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Children & Youth Roundtable 9: Social Inequalities

Abstract

A quick look at the news shows us that Black female students in schools across the nation are still disproportionately disciplined for natural aspects of their being, such as their way of speech, skin color, or hair. In fact, the adultification of young Black girls causes their bodies to be scrutinized, hypersexualized, and excessively monitored for simply existing while Black. I aim to study the racial and gendered nature of school disciplinary practices, the variation in how it is carried out amongst female students, and how school punishment impacts the educational outcomes and racial understanding of Black girls. I use interviews and participant observation to identify the presence of racial disparities in punishment outcomes amongst teenage girls attending Madison Metropolitan middle schools and their effect on the life experiences of Black, female students. In doing so, this study illustrates how punitive practices and discriminatory school policies influence how Black girls come to understand their Blackness. It also highlights how the classification of several types of deviant behavior is rooted in racist and sexist ideologies. Finally, this study can be applied more broadly to influence what we know about non-Black female racial minority students and their experiences with punishment and racial formation.

Author

• Ruby Bafu, University of Wisconsin-Madison