The Grammar of School Discipline examines how seemingly discrete school discipline policies and practices constitute a particular grammar: Removal, Resistance and Reform. Weaving numeric data with portraits of students and school practitioners, the authors 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 construction of Blackness as criminal, deviant, and deserving of punishment. A focus on resistance centers the agency that students and practitioners exercise despite anti-Black removal. An exploration of specific reform efforts emphasizes that even the most well-intentioned and well-organized reforms are limited when the removal of students remains an option for practitioners. The authors end with an appeal to educational stakeholders to repair the harms that these anti-Black policies and practices inflict on students and communities, and thus move towards repairing the damage that white supremacy inflicts on everyone’s humanity.
Author(s): Hannah Carson Baggett, Carey E. Andrzejewski
Series: Race and Education in the Twenty-First Century
Publisher: Lexington Books
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 226
City: Lanham
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Prologue
Introduction: Any Given Day in an Alabama Alternative School
Overview
Note
Part I: Removal
Chapter 1: Methods of Removal (with Nicholas P. Triplett)
Objective and Subjective Incidents
Exclusionary Discipline
Suspensions
Expulsions
Alternative School Placements
Referrals to Law Enforcement
Corporal Punishment
Consequences of Removal
Note
Chapter 2: Motives for Removal
Removal
Removal as an Act of White Supremacy
What Makes Removal Possible?
Motivations for Removal
Removed from Data
Note
Chapter 3: A Portrait of Removal: Cotton County Schools (with Jasmine S. Betties and Sangah Lee)
The Fallacy of “Good” Schools
Exclusionary Discipline
Subjective Discipline in Cotton County
Disciplining toward Removal
Opportunities for Reflection and Action Regarding Removal
Note
Part II: Resistance
Chapter 4: Removed for Resistance
Understanding the “Subjective” Label
Understanding Resistance
Chapter 5: Who Are the “Bad Kids”?: Portraits of Alternative School Students (with Sean A. Forbes)
Defining Alternative Education
Alternative Education in Muscogee City Schools
“Bad Kids”
Chapter 6: Resistance and School-Based Practitioners
Discipline in Creek City Schools
“Loud” and Black in Creek City
Note
Chapter 7: Hitting Kids “Just Doesn’t Sit Well”: Resistance to Corporal Punishment (with Benjamin Arnberg)
Overview of Corporal Punishment
Corporal Punishment in Alabama
Corporal Punishment in the Black Belt
Opportunities for Reflection and Action Regarding Resistance
Part III: Reform
Chapter 8: Efforts toward Reform
An Overview of Reform
Reform in Alabama
Race-Evasive Reform in Creek City
Raced and Racist Incidents
Chapter 9: A Portrait of Reform : Timber County Schools (with Nanyamka A. Shukura, Sangah Lee, and Jasmine S. Betties)
Timber County Schools
Precursors and Consequences of the Timber County Settlement
Unintended Consequences
Opportunities for Reflection and Action Regarding Reform
Part IV: Repair
Chapter 10: The 4th R
Notes
Chapter 11: Self-Portraiture, Problematic Positions, and Politics
Data Denials and Discrepancies
Portraiture as a Response
Complicity and Resistance
Who Benefits?
This Sociopolitical Moment
References
Index
About the Authors
