Getting Rid Of Troublemakers In High School Summary

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A reading that specifically relates to Rios’s youth control complex is Bowditch’s “Getting Rid of Troublemakers in High School” in which the labels that youth experienced outside of school translated into stigma at school (e.g., school teachers, school administrators). This led to the criminalization and hyper-criminalization of the youth in every aspect of their lives as they navigated their way through the school system. According to Bowditch, routine disciplinary procedures in schools with large populations of Latino and African Americans, and other students of color as well, are said to encourage school workers to “get rid of” students seen as “troublemakers.” The “troublemakers” were defined as individuals whose conduct was consistently …show more content…

A general term that is utilized in relation to behavior considered punishable is deviant. Individuals in positions of formal authority (e.g., school administrators, teachers, and school board members) exclusively define deviance. Bowditch states that practices at the organizational level (within schools), determine whose behavior fits those formal definitions of deviance, and that the accused individual’s racial or class status makes him or her more susceptible to being labeled. Additionally, labeling generates secondary deviance by fortifying the identification with and commitment to deviant behavior; and since the labeled person’s financial, racial, social, and political resources impact their ability to reject and shield themselves against their marked position, labeling may create even more deviance merely by blocking access to legitimate resources and opportunities. Conversely, one who has the social and cultural capital that is rewarded by an institution is often able to deflect or renegotiate a deviant label. Unfortunately, being labeled deviant or a “troublemaker,“ is the “beginning of the end” of high school for many youth of color, as school personnel within these institutions use their perceptions to determine whether a student stays in school or is forced …show more content…

In this case, schools, without the incorporation of students and parents, chooses what constitutes deviant behavior; along these same students and parent barring means, schools then decide who is deviant; they further determine how to deal with this non-normative behavior/ deviance by compiling a paper trail in order to legitimize disposing of particular students. It is vital to note that “troublemakers,” as frequently labeled, act in similar ways as many of the other students, yet get more severe punishments. The adolescents in these types of schools are all seen as criminals due to the labels that have been placed on them, thus are easily criminalized from coming up short in the socially constructed educational system, which prompts suspensions and eventually expulsions. The youth control complex or “web of control” in which institutions create a social fabric, manages most of the youth as criminals. The police, school administrators, and other authorities don’t bother to try to see if these individuals’ are actually criminals, or responsible for the incidents that led them to being labeled as deviant, instead they are generalized in an amorphous way as criminals. All in all, the criminal justice system’s fabric becomes part of the social context that consistently undermines these individual’s abilities to achieve within the

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