School Discipline Inequalities and the Racial Economy of Black and White Boys’ Emotions in Early Childhood

• In Event: 40409 - The Rules Are Meant to Be Broken: Discipline, Punishment, and Resistance in Childhood and Adolescence

Abstract

What role do racialized emotions play in school discipline? Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in a racially diverse elementary school, I find that racialized emotions play a key role in school discipline inequalities. My data suggests that Black and White boys emotionally react to discipline in racialized ways. I argue that their differing emotional responses to discipline reflect their racialized disciplinary experiences. Secondly, I show how teachers’ racialized responses to the boys’ emotions reveal the differential value given to Black and White boys’ feelings. The patterns that I identify in this study illustrate the racial economy of Black and White boys’ emotional responses to school discipline. Accordingly, I discuss how children’s racialized emotions perpetuate racial inequalities. I also discuss the implications of these findings for the racial socialization of young Black and White boys.

Author

• Calvin Rashaud Zimmermann, Georgia Institute of Technology