Authority, Discipline, and the Marginalization of Youth in Schools #EdResearch4SpringValley
A young female student at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina was assaulted in her classroom by a police office on October 26, 2015. She was asked to leave a classroom by a teacher after allegedly using her phone during a math class. She refused and was later confronted by Richland County Senior Deputy Ben Fields, who asked her to leave. When the student ignored him, the officer proceeded to grab her by the neck, slam her desk to the floor and then drag her out of the desk. The footage went viral, and the masses began to react on social media.
Many academics were horrified by what we saw, knowing that the forces that undergird such harsh treatment are similar to the ones that fuel disproportionate suspensions and expulsions and the so-called school-to-prison pipeline. In response, the faculty director of the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford University, Professor Prudence Carter, with the assistance of Dr. Travis Bristol, a research and policy fellow at the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE), and doctoral student, Kia Darling-Hammond, spearheaded an effort to put together a list of research that addresses the marginalization and treatment of youth of color in our schools.
The call as educational researchers and other social scientists “to make informative research more widely known to educators, parents, students, activists, community-based organizations and many others, as they continue to eradicate disparate treatment in discipline, suspensions, and expulsions in schools.”
The response was immediate. Educational researchers and other social scientists connected via social media to offer their suggestions for Authority, Discipline, and the Marginalization of Youth in Schools #EdResearch4SpringValley – Cloaking Inequity:
