The enforcement and structure of school discipline reflects the Critical Race Theory of the relationship between law and society because of the inequality of the school-to-prison pipeline, and restorative justice shows the power of applying the theory. Critical Race Theory is about race’s role in the legal system and society. It argues that since slavery and racist ideas, the idea of race in general has been socially constructed. These racist ideas, while they have become less explicit now, have lasting effects. Law, since it was created at the time of significant racism, contains the idea of race and uses it in unequal racist laws. While the worst of these have gone away, there remain undertones of racism and indirect racist laws. These racist …show more content…
Microaggressions are remarks that imply a racist and offending idea, such as a small mean assumption or disregard, while not being the conscious point of what someone may be saying, they are when a remark from someone of prejudice turns into a racist statement. School discipline in today’s society is a topic of discussion because of its troublesome history of and current racist effects–such as the “school-to-prison pipeline.” It works like this: students of color are disproportionately affected by putative school discipline, especially since the increase of “school resource officers” —police officers within schools. As a result, students of color are more likely to be put into the criminal justice system (2016 Cohen). In addition, an increasing volume of suspensions worsened this issue. Since the 70s, many schools applied “zero-tolerance” policies requiring suspensions for certain offenses, leading to significantly more suspension overall, with rates nearly doubling from 1973 to 2006. These rates also exacerbated Pelenur 2 inequality, with Black students roughly four times as likely to be suspended as white students (2014, Department of Education Office for Civil Rights; 2018 …show more content…
In its application to school discipline, CRT makes it clear that there are a plethora of problems. Restorative justice is the result of light being shed on these problems. Highline Public Schools, a racially diverse district that embraced restorative justice in 2013, more than halved their suspensions in three years. Highline also found that since the change, their students take more AP classes, graduate more, and there is less suspension and graduation disproportionality for underrepresented students (2018 Dorio). It is no surprise that an attempt at solving the issues brought up by CRT, even a rough attempt and first try, will show great improvement to equality within the system. This is because the root of the inequality is the system, and actions need to be taken to change it. In this case, a simple reform would not solve the problem in schools. The entire system of school discipline needs to completely
In his novel Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys, Dr. Victor M. Rios aims to demonstrate the catastrophe of criminalization, the flops of using cruel and humiliating punishments that attempt to “‘correct’ and ‘manage’ marginalized youths” (p. 23), and to display the consequences that these practices will have on the paths that teenagers take. He does this by documenting parts of his experience in observing forty boys of Black and/or Latino who are “heavily affected by criminal justice policies and practice” (p. 8). Then, he clarifies how these flaws impacted the boys in these situations. The aim of this essay is to summarize Dr. Rios’ observations and analyze and critique the primary arguments made in the book.
The book "Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys" is written by Victor M. Rios, who was a former gang member in his hometown and later turned his life around. He went to Berkeley and earned a doctorate in sociology. This book explores how youth of color are punished and criminalized by authorities even under the situation where there is no crimes committed and how it can cause a harmful consequence for the young man and their community in Oakland, California. The goal is to show the consequences of social control on the lives of young people of color and try to remind the authorities. This is important Since society plays a crucial part in shaping the lives of people. And the authorities have biases towards them and mistreat
What began as a movement in the mid-1970s, is a theory that deals with the interconnectedness of racism and the legal system. Critical Race Theory is a concept created in law schools in the United States during a time when “heady advances of the civil rights era of the 1960s had stalled and, in many respects, were being rolled back” (Delgado et al. 4). The theory now encompasses its ideals into three main “features:”
Critical Race Theory (CRT) began in the field of law and has been used as a theoretical framework in educational research for over 15 years (Savas, 2014). Gloria-Ladson-Bilings and William F.Tate IV’s wrote an article, “Toward a Critical Race Theory of Education”, in 1995 and began the use of Critical Race Theory as a lens for future studies in education. The first tenet of CRT looks at race and racism through historical contexts. To explore this tenet, I will take a brief glance back to the beginning of our country and the beginning of white as a superior race.
Race as a factor in inequity. Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) posit that race continues to be a significant factor in determining inequity in the United States. Race matters in society. If we look at high school drop out, suspension, and incarceration rates of men of color in America we see a disproportionate amount of men of color marginalized and profiled by society. This is further compounded by the perception that male faculty of color cannot be educators or at least are not often conceptually visualized in that capacity (Bryan and Browder, 2013).
The school to prison pipeline is a phenomenon that refers to the practices and policies that have pushed school children, especially the most at-risk children, out of classrooms and into the juvenile justice system. This disturbing occurrence indicates the prioritization of incarceration over the education of children. Most alarmingly, many of the children being targeted have learning disabilities or histories of poverty, abuse or neglect. Instead of being targeted, these children would much rather benefit from additional counseling and educational services. Moreover, the knowledge acquired in this course will be incorporated in this paper and used to explain the points made. In this term paper, what will be discussed is the expansion of the zero tolerance policy, the different views on the policy, who is mostly targeted, the effects on the juveniles and any alternative solutions that could diminish this dismaying occurrence for becoming a larger problem.
Racism has always been a heated topic, and it is well-known that many students of colour still face racism in the form of bullying. However, Derald Wing Sue argues that there is a type of minute racism present in our daily lives. This implicit racism lies in everyday interactions called microaggressions. He defines the concept of microaggressions as “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to people of colour because they belong to a racial minority group” (1). They are everyday messages that are subtle and often unintentional. I will discuss these acts of microaggression with an emphasis on students in a post-secondary White-based environment. That is, a university or college that is predominantly biased towards a White culture.
Even though extraordinary changes have been made in the past to achieve racial equality, America is still racist, especially in schools. In the novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” written by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch is criticized for defending a black man accused of raping a white woman. During the 1930s, the time this novel took place, America was a very segregated country. At the time when Harper Lee wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird," America was fighting a civil rights movement. The events of racism in “To Kill a Mockingbird” reflect the time period.
Microaggressions are everyday verbal, visual, or environmental hostilities, slights, insults, and invalidations or mistreatment that occur due to an individual’s race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. i.e. a citizen of the citizen. The concept of racial microaggressions has been around since the 1970s, but much of the current research is rooted in the work of two professors, Jack Dovidio, Ph.D. (Yale University) and Samuel Gaertner, Ph.D. (University of Delaware), and their explanations of aversive racism. Their research has its foundation in the idea that many well-intentioned Whites consciously believe in and profess equality, but unconsciously act in a racist manner, particularly in ambiguous situations (CITE). In keeping with that foundation, racial microaggressions can be defined as the brief and everyday slights, insults, indignities and denigrating messages sent to people of color by well-intentioned White people who are unaware of the hidden messages being communicated (CITE).
Muhammad Ali, a famous boxer, once said, “Hating People because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. I’s just plain wrong” (Goodreads, 2015). For many centuries, ethnic conflict between the humans have existed immortally due the never changing differences of culture and values, spinning the cycle of war. Fortunately, some have ended however some still remain immortal in the eyes of those who have experience struggle to this date. The lack of awareness of problems in a cultural crisis concerning those who fall victim to a system and society that discriminates and alienates. With assistance of Critical Race Theory, this essay will examine how the role of race with has affected has caused consequences within the lives of marginalized groups within society through the lives and their relationship with those in their communities.
Many people believe that racism is no longer present; however, racism is subtly interconnected with many aspects of ever person’s life, including school, upper mobility, access to services and their race many times determine the proper care given by a health care professional. Based on research, racism is interconnected with mental health care. This essay will offer a theoretical explanation that allows social workers a better understanding to clinician’s misdiagnosis of ethnic minorities. Critical Race Theory permits clinicians to purposely or unintentionally misdiagnoses ethnic minorities and will be used in understanding how racism ingrained in the mental health care system.
Introduction We live in a society where race is seen as a vital part of our personalities, the lack of racial identity is very often an important factor which prevents people from not having their own identity (Omi & Winant, 1993). Racism is extremely ingrained in our society and it seems ordinary (Delgado & Stefanic, 2000). However, many people denounce the expression of any racist belief as immoral (Miles & Brown, 2003) highlighting the complicated nature of racism. Critical Race Theory tries to shed light on the issue of racism, claiming that racism is ingrained in our society both in legal, cultural, and psychological aspects of social life (Tate, 1997). This essay provides us with the opportunity to explore this theory and its influence in the field of education.
Khadaroo, Teicher. A. “School suspensions: Does racial bias feed the school-to-prison pipeline?” The Christian Science Monitor. March 31, 2013. Web.
Once a school system drops their efforts to integrate schools, the schools in low-income neighborhood are left to suffer; not to mention that segregation in schools leads, not only to the neglect of schools, but the neglect of students as well. Resegregation quite literally divides the public schools into two groups “the good schools”, that are well funded, and “the bad schools”, that receive a fraction of the benefits-- more often than not the groups are alternatively labeled as “the white schools” and “the black schools” (and/or hispanic). Opportunities for the neglected students diminish significantly without certain career specific qualifications that quality education can provide-- they can’t rise above the forces that are keeping them in their situation.
It is apparent that socialization of culture is prevalent in all schools, but how is this done? We have to examine the multiple ways authority figures in schools socialize whiteness to Black students. This starts with racializing behaviors. Teachers and authority figures are equating certain behaviors with Blackness, even if all students, regardless of race, preform these behaviors. Teachers would connect Ebonics or “talking Black” to the student’s poor performance in school.