culture

After President Trump blamed California state officials for not doing enough to fight and prevent wildfires, civil servants seem to be fed up. Though often understood as emotionless state bureaucrats, frontline workers of the state — from firefighters to social workers — must often deal with suffering, emergencies, and disasters in the everyday operations of their agencies. Social science research helps us understand how state actors manage these roles and maintain their own emotional wellbeing.

The work of state agents entails balancing institutional rules and scarce state resources. Their everyday decisions are thus an essential component of administering and implementing public policy. Because they control the distribution of services, state officials can become policymakers with considerable discretion in the daily implementation of state activities. Their work not only influences how state operations impact citizens’ lives, but it also shapes citizens’ perceptions of state legitimacy.

• Michael Lipsky. 2010. Street-Level Bureaucracy, 30th Anniversary Edition: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service. Russell Sage Foundation.
• Bernardo Zacka. 2017. When the State Meets the Street: Public Service and Moral Agency. Harvard University Press.
• Amy E. Lerman and Vesla M. Weaver. 2014. Arresting Citizenship: The Democratic Consequences of American Crime Control. University of Chicago Press.

Workers’ affective lives — their emotional challenges and commitments to institutions — impact the functioning of organizations. Unlike many politicians, scholars, or journalists, state bureaucrats have everyday contact with adversity, social problems, and vulnerable populations. For state officials who interact with the public, working with clients can be emotionally draining and even physically harmful. Civil servants suffer emotional and psychological distress as a result of their daily roles. The consequences of exhausting interactions are harmful to the purposes of the organization, as — in the process of routine operations — bureaucrats may develop special preferences, antipathies, and discrimination against their clients.

• Robert K. Merton. 1939. “Bureaucratic Structure and Personality.” Social Forces 18: 560-568.
• Charles R. Figley. 2013. Compassion Fatigue: Coping with Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder in Those who Treat the Traumatized. Routledge.
• Joe Soss, Richard C. Fording, and  Sanford F. Schram. 2011. Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. University of Chicago Press.

State agents thus perform a complex balancing act, both for society and for themselves. Instead of using the stereotype of bureaucrats as vile and insensitive, public policy decisions must also consider the operations of organizational behavior and the struggles of bureaucrats in providing state services.

After years of debate, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) — which sets minimum requirements for caseworkers handling state child custody proceedings involving Native children — was recently ruled unconstitutional by a Texas federal judge. The judge argued that ICWA violates constitutional rights to Equal Protection because it “elevates a child’s race over their best interest” — despite the fact that Native children are actually citizens of federally recognized tribes. Social science research helps us understand the historical context necessitating ICWA’s creation, with respect to the problematic history of child removal from Native communities as shaped by racialized, gendered, and cultural ideas.

The ICWA was enacted in 1978, a time when Native children were being removed from their homes and placed in foster care at staggering numbers under the guise of protecting children. At that time, 25-35% of Native children were removed from their homes by state child welfare or by private adoption companies. And the majority (about 85%) of these children were placed outside of their families and communities, even when relatives were willing to take them. Today, despite the minimal protections offered by the ICWA, Minnesota places more Native children in foster care than any other state, making up 20% of children in the system.

• Lila J. George. 1997. “Why the Need for the Indian Child Welfare Act?” Journal of Multicultural Social Work 5(3): 165-175.
• Margaret D. Jacobs. 2014. A Generation Removed: The Fostering and Adoption of Indigenous Children in the Postwar World. University of Nebraska Press.

The ICWA’s creation and implementation has not only been a response to child-removal through adoption, however. Even earlier, Native children were sent to government or Christian-run boarding schools where teachers forced children to abandon their distinct tribal cultures — they cut Native children’s hair, did not allow them to speak their native languages or participate in cultural practices, and enforced strict discipline through corporal punishment. The boarding school era prevented generations of Native people from learning (and passing on) parenting tools. This separation of families, along with the disruption to Native cultural and spiritual practices, has been linked to symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, increased exposure to physical violence, and substance abuse in Native communities.

• Brenda J. Child. Boarding School Seasons: American Indian Families, 1900-1940. University of Nebraska Press.
• Catherine Burnette. 2015. “Historical Oppression and Intimate Partner Violence Experienced by Indigenous Women in the United States: Understanding Connections.” Social Service Review 89(3): 531-563.

The removal of Native children is also couched in deep-set racialized, gendered, and cultural notions of family, specifically the white middle class ideal of the nuclear family, characterized by two married parents and children. Conversely, non-Native supporters of these adoption practices often relied on stereotypes of Native women as sexualized, unmarried, and thus unfit, which pathologized Native families as neglectful. They have also argued that each child’s best interests should be considered on an individual basis, rathering than acknowledging what tribes see as the importance of culture and identity, tribal rights, and belonging. In other words, supporters of Native adoption saw “disadvantaged” Native children that needed to be “rescued” by individual acts of goodwill (from white, middle class Americans).

• Margaret D. Jacobs. 2013. “Remembering the ‘Forgotten Child’: The American Indian Child Welfare Crisis.” American Indian Quarterly
• Dwanna Robertson. 2015. “Invisibility in the Color-Blind Era: Examining Legitimized Racism Against Indigenous Peoples.” American Indian Quarterly 39(2): 113-153.
• Kathryn A. Sweeney and Rachel L. Pollack. 2017. “Colorblind Individualism, Color Consciousness, and the Indian Child Welfare Act: Representations of Adoptee Best Interest in Newspaper Coverage of the Baby Veronica Case.” The Sociological Quarterly 58(4): 701-720.

So what will legal reconsideration of the Indian Child Welfare Act bring? Many tribes fear that the Texas ruling sets a dangerous precedent that could dismantle the federal laws put in place to correct historical injustices like the boarding school system. Other tribal leaders see the ruling as an attempt to destroy their right to political and cultural survival through their children, while simultaneously compromising efforts to heal from the wrongdoings inflicted upon tribal communities. In the context of the current political division over the treatment of immigrant children separated from their parents at the U.S. border, such concerns warrant serious attention.

Originally posted October 18. 2017

If you like Halloween, you know that witches are a popular costume choice and decoration this time of year. But the history of witches involves much more than bubbling cauldrons and flying broomsticks. Social science shows us that witchcraft has a long history of empowering marginalized groups, like women and sexual minorities, who question more traditional religious practices.

While popular images of witches often focus on magic spells, brooms, and pointed hats, witchcraft and other forms of neo-paganism have historically been used by women to push back against male-dominated religions. More traditional, hierarchical religions like Christianity and Islam often place women in a subordinate role to men, and research finds that many women are drawn to witchcraft and other alternative spiritualities because they emphasize female empowerment, embodied rituals, and sexual freedom.

• T.M. Luhrmann. 1989. Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England. Harvard University Press.
• Kristin Aune. 2015. “Feminist Spirituality as Lived Religion: How UK Feminists Forge Religio-spiritual Lives.” Gender & Society 29(1): 122-145.
• Cynthia Eller. 1993. Living in the Lap of the Goddess: The Feminist Spirituality Movement in America. New York: Crossroad.

People who practice witchcraft and neo-paganism typically see sexuality and gender as key sites for social transformation and personal healing, pushing back against the Christian idea that sex and bodies are sinful. Since neo-paganism values sexual freedom and sexual diversity, LGBTQ folks and people practicing polyamory often feel a sense of belonging that they don’t find in other religious spaces.

• Sarah M. Pike. 2006. New Age and Neo-Pagan Religions in America. Columbia University Press.
• Helen Berger, Evan Leach, and Leigh Shaffer. 2003. Voices from the Pagan Census: A National Survey of Witches and Neo-Pagans in the United States. University of South Carolina Press.
• Helen Berger, ed. 2005. Witchcraft and Magic: Contemporary North America. University of Pennsylvania Press.

This has also been true for young adults. In general, young adults practice religion and spirituality differently than do older generations. For example, millennials are the least likely to participate in traditional religious institutions or identify with one single religious belief system, but many still desire some combination of spirituality and community. The increase in portrayals of witchcraft and other neo-pagan religions in popular media has exposed younger generations to these communities, and research finds that teens are more often drawn to these alternative spiritual practices as a means of self-discovery and community, rather than the promise of magical powers.

• Helen Berger and Douglas Ezzy. 2007. Teenage Witches: Magical Youth and the Search for the Self. Rutgers University Press.
• Lisa Pearce and Melinda Lundquist Denton. 2011. A Faith of Their Own: Stability and Change in the Religiosity of America’s Adolescents. Oxford University Press. 
• Richard Flory and Donald Miller. 2007. “The Embodied Spirituality of the Post-Boomer Generations,” in A Sociology of Spirituality, edited by Kieran Flanagan and Peter C. Jupp. Ashgate Publishing.

This post was created in collaboration with the Minnesota Journalism Center. 

“A Way Out of the Immigration Crisis.” “Like it or Not, Immigrant Children are Our Future.” “Trump Talks Tough on Immigration in Nevada but it Could Backfire.”

All three of these news headlines were published by mainstream news outlets in the United States in September 2018. All three portray immigration in a negative light. While much news and media coverage across the globe portrays immigration negatively, researchers who study this area also identify media outlets that include more positive coverage. 

One thing scholars have found is that immigration coverage has increased rapidly since 2004. In U.S. coverage, there is a heavy focus on “immigration reform” and “tougher border control” as solutions to the immigration “problem.” Across the pond in the United Kingdom, polls have ranked immigration as one of citizens’ top concerns, with coverage of immigration being overwhelmingly negative and centered on conflict through utilization of crime frames and discussion of immigrants as “illegal” or “failed.”

• Sei-hill Kim, John P. Carvalho, Andrew G. Davis, and Amanda M. Mullins. 2011. “The View of the Border: News Framing of the Definition, Causes, and Solutions to Illegal Immigration.” Mass Communication and Society 14(3): 292–314.
• David Smith and David Deacon. 2018. “Immigration and the British News Media: Continuity or Change?” Sociology Compass 12(9): 1-13.
• Jakob-Moritz Eberl, Christine E. Meltzer, Tobias Heidenreich, Beatrice Herrero, Nora Theorin, Fabienne Lind, Rosa Berganza, Hajo G. Boomgaarden, Christian Schemer, and Jesper Strömbäck. 2018. “The European Media Discourse on Immigration and its Effects: a Literature Review.” Annals of the International Communication Association 42(3): 207–223.

But not all publications discuss immigration in the same way. For example, scholars have found that African-American media outlets publish immigration stories with racial frames that depict immigrants as allies, while other major mainstream media outlets frequently utilize crime frames that discuss the legal status of immigrants.

• Irene Browne, Natalie Delia Deckard, and Cassaundra Rodriguez. 2016. “Different Game, Different Frame?: Black Counterdiscourses and Depictions of Immigration in Atlanta’s African-American and Mainstream Press.” The Sociological Quarterly 57(3): 520–543.

Research also shows suggests that the conflict-oriented news coverage of immigration contributes to polarized public opinions about immigration policies in digital spaces as well as comment sections of mainstream news sites. Conversely, social and mobile media in Australia has been used as a platform for asylum-seekers in detention to share their experiences with the public directly. Journalists and citizens alike have collaborated with detained asylum-seekers to create journalistic narratives that raise awareness of human rights violations unfolding in offshore detainment centers. Though not embraced by all consumers, such stories about immigration appear to cultivate expressions of empathy from audiences.

• Giovanna Dell’Orto and Vicki L. Birchfield (Eds.). 2013. Reporting at the Southern Borders: Journalism and Public Debates on Immigration in the US and the EU. New York: Routledge.
• Marijn van Klingeren, Hajo G. Boomgaarden, and Claes de Vreese. 2017. “Will Conflict Tear Us Apart? The Effects of Conflict and Valenced Media Messages on Polarizing Attitudes Toward EU Immigration and Border Control.” Public Opinion Quarterly 81(2): 543–563.
• Maria Rae, Rosa Holman, and Amy Nethery. 2018. “Self-represented Witnessing: The Use of Social Media by Asylum Seekers in Australia’s Offshore Immigration Detention Centres.” Media, Culture & Society 40(4): 479–495.

People invent words and definitions to help navigate the world around them. Once created, such labels can have monumental impacts. The word “genocide” is one example of a term that holds meaning for victims, perpetrators, and those who watch violence unfold. Over the past few years, debates have raged as to whether or not to call the Burmese state’s violence against the Rohingya “genocide.” Such debates often privilege the label, rather than focusing on the everyday violence experienced by civilians. Sociologists seek to understand the meaning, use, and consequences of labels like genocide.

Individuals and groups use institutions to construct consensus about labels. But people use terms in different ways, and labels often change in meaning over time. The term “genocide” was first coined by a lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, in the aftermath of the Holocaust. The United Nations adopted this term and formalized genocide as a crime in 1951, but the meaning of genocide continues to be contested. Some academics, for example, advocate for the inclusion of political groups as targets for genocide in addition to collectivities that are already included, like ethnic or religious groups.

• Howard Becker. 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. London: Free Press of Glencoe.
• Dirk Moses. 2010. “Raphael Lemkin, Culture, and the Concept of Genocide.” Pp. 19-41 in The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Philip Spencer. 2012. Genocide Since 1945. London: Routledge

Debates about labels have real effects. In the case of genocide, such implications are most directly felt by populations affected by violence. Victims can feel that their loss is recognized and mourned when appropriate labels are used, while an insufficient label may promote impunity for past crimes. As some theorists argue that an acknowledgement of past wrongdoing is central to healing, the use of fitting labels takes on an even more practical importance.

• Jeffrey Alexander, Ron Eyerman, Bernhard Giesen, Neil J. Smelser, and Piotr Sztompka. 2004. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press
• Hannah Arendt. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Despite these important considerations, some scholars and activists express concern that focusing on labels does more harm than good. The label of “genocide,” though critically important to survivors and advocates, does not come with legal obligations to intervene. While policymakers and activists discuss the relevance of the term “genocide” in Burma, atrocity crimes continue to unfold. As such, some scholars argue that the social importance of labels can distract from the immediate needs of victims of violence. From this vantage point, scholarly and advocacy attention is best directed towards serving the needs of those impacted by violence.

• Dirk Moses. 2012. “The Canadian Museum for Human Rights: The ‘Uniqueness of the Holocaust’ and the Question of Genocide.” Journal of Genocide Research 14(2): 215-238.
• Mahmood Mamdani. 2007. “The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency.” London Review of Books 29(5): 5-8.

More and more Americans have begun observing Indigenous Peoples Day, at least in part to push back against national narratives of “discovery” associated with Christopher Columbus and his commemoration. While a relatively recent development in the United States, other nations of the Americas officially acknowledged the importance of their Indigenous heritage for much longer. For example, in Mexico, Día de la Raza or “The Day of the Race” was officially recognized back in 1928 and was part of a larger national project that emphasized that all Mexicans share a history of racial and cultural mixing — known as mestizaje — since the coming of the Spanish. Sociological research highlights how this recognition of Indigenous people as integral to the formation of the nation has actually had mixed consequences for Indigenous peoples and cultures of Mexico.

The notion of mestizaje emphasized that all Mexicans were fundamentally “mixed” individuals, or “mestizos.” It was adopted by the State in an effort to promote inclusion and national cohesion across racial lines — including Indigenous peoples — and even resulted in the removal of racial categories from the census (after 1921). In this spirit, the Mexican government sought to “improve” Indigenous individuals through education, social integration, and economic development, assimilating them into the newly defined mestizo nation. While some benefited, some lost their language and cultural identity, and many others, especially those with darker skin, faced further marginalization and found themselves pushed underground.

• Christina A. Sue. 2013. Land of the Cosmic Race: Race Mixture, Racism, and Blackness in Mexico. Oxford University Press.
• Graziella Moraes Silva and Emiko Saldívar. 2018. “Comparing Ideologies of Racial Mixing in Latin America: Brazil And Mexico.” Sociologia & Antropologia 8(2): 427-456.
• Edward Telles. 2014. Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race, and Color in Latin America. The University of North Carolina Press.

Due to internal and external political pressures in the 1990s, the Mexican government abandoned its assimilationist policies and began instead to protect and promote the languages and cultures of Indigenous peoples. These shifts appear to have contributed to greater ethnic pride and greater likelihood to self-identify as Indigenous, especially for more educated, wealthier, or urban populations. However, skin color continues to carry economic and social weight in Mexico. Non-white Mexicans tend to have lower levels of education and employment and are more likely to live in poverty than their lighter-skinned peers.

• Andrés Villarreal. 2010. “Stratification by Skin Color in Contemporary Mexico.” American Sociological Review 75(5): 652-678.
• Andrés Villarreal. 2014. “Ethnic Identification and Its Consequences for Measuring Inequality in Mexico” American Sociological Review 79(4): 775-806.
• René Flores and Edward Telles. 2012. “Social Stratification in Mexico: Disentangling Color, Ethnicity, and Class.” American Sociological Review 77(3): 486-494.

So, while Mexico may still celebrate a day to acknowledge its mixed racial heritage, it is worth wondering if there might be other, better ways to recognize and address the challenges that actual Indigenous people in the country face on a day to day basis.

The newest Apple Watch can now warn users when it detects an abnormal heartbeat. While Apple may be on the cutting edge, many people have been using apps to track their food intake and exercise for some time. Social science research demonstrates that health-tracking technology reflects larger social forces and institutions.

These health-tracking apps are part of a larger trend in American medicine that researchers call “biomedicalization,” which includes a greater focus on health (as opposed to illness), risk management, surveillance, and includes a variety of technological advances.

• Adele E. Clarke, Janet K. Shim, Laura Mamo, Jennifer Ruth Fosket, and Jennfier R. Fishman. 2003. “Biomedicalization: Technoscientific Transformations of Health, Illness, and U.S. Biomedicine.” American Sociological Review 68: 161–94.
• David Armstrong. 1995. “The Rise of Surveillance Medicine.” Sociology of Health and Illness 17: 393–404.

Benefits of using these apps include empowering patients and not having to rely on doctors for knowledge about one’s body, which — as many of the apps advertise — may save time and money by potentially allowing them to avoid doctor visits. However, self-tracking may put more onus on the individual to maintain their health on their own, leading to blame for those who do not take advantage of this technology. Further, using this technology could lead to strain in doctor-patient relationships if doctors believe patients are undermining their authority.

• Deborah Lupton. 2016. The Quantified Self: A Sociology of Self-Tracking. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
• Deborah Lupton and Annemarie Jutel. 2015. “‘It’s Like Having a Physician in Your Pocket!’ A Critical Analysis of Self-Diagnosis Smartphone Apps.” Social Science & Medicine 133: 128–35.

As more and more Americans use smartphones, the promise of digital technology, including health-tracking apps, for reducing existing health disparities grows. However, the Pew Research Center shows large income and educational gaps still exist in smartphone use, meaning the health benefits of using such technology — as well as potential downfalls — for the greater population, may be a long way off.

This post was created in collaboration with the Minnesota Journalism Center. 

From FiveThirtyEight to the front page of the local paper, data journalism is on the rise at media outlets worldwide. As early as 2012, Columbia Journalism Review published reports featuring examples of local and regional outlets beginning to publish stories with graphs, charts, and visualizations online. In the case of New York City news media in particular, data, analytic, and platform-based positions now account for nine percent of all media jobs — marking considerable growth since 2010. Studies also show that, in today’s journalistic job market, entry-level journalists are often expected to have skills in data journalism, social media, and analytics in addition to traditional reporting and editing skills. Social science research shows how social forces contribute to this shift. 

Legacy media organizations including the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post produce news at breakneck speed in a 24/7 news cycle, and are constantly innovating to find the most profitable and efficient methods to distribute news to the public. Not only are online media able to host the results and illustrations of large data analysis, but some media outlets utilize computational and/or algorithmic processes and programs that automatically convert batches of data into news stories for publication.

• Matt Carlson. 2014. “The Robotic Reporter.” Digital Journalism 3(3): 416-431.
• Angèle Christin. 2018. “Counting Clicks: Quantification and Variation in Web Journalism in the United States and France.” American Journal of Sociology 123(5): 1382-1415.
• Phaedra Daipha. 2015. Masters of Uncertainty: Weather Forecasters and the Quest for Ground Truth. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

The rise of data journalism is also self-reinforcing: As data becomes a central fixture in newsrooms worldwide, higher education institutions are developing programs to train journalists in data, analytics and programming. Established data journalism programs at higher education institutions include Columbia Journalism School and the University of Missouri’s M.S. in Data Science & Analytics, while other institutions offer data journalism courses taught by part-time, adjunct, and/or visiting instructors who specialize in the field. Not surprisingly, social scientists are beginning to track and analyze these programs.

• Baharah R. Heravi. 2018. “3WS of Data Journalism Education.” Journalism Practice 0(0): 1-18.
• Greg Treadwell, Tara Ross, Allan Lee, Jeff Kelly Lowenstein. 2016. “A Numbers Game: Two Case Studies in Teaching Data Journalism.” Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 71(3): 297-308.
• Deb Halpern Wenger, Lynn C. Owens, Jason Cain. 2018. “Help Wanted: Realigning Journalism Education to Meet the Needs of Top U.S. News Companies.” Journalism & Mass Communication Educator 73(1): 18-36.

Recently, Trump advisor Stephen Miller announced plans to bar documented immigrants from citizenship if they or their families have ever used social assistance programs such as food stamps or welfare. Such action reflects stereotypes about who uses social assistance — in the United States, people of color take the blame. Not only are these stereotypes often incorrect, they are also deeply rooted in a long history of race and racism in America.

It is important to understand that racial minorities and immigrants do not necessarily use more public resources than native-born whites. Racial minorities and immigrants do tend to have lower incomes and levels of education than native-born whites, but research shows that they do not excessively use social assistance programs when compared with other groups.

• Sandra K Danziger. 2010. “The Decline of Cash Welfare and Implications for Social Policy and Poverty.” Annual Review of Sociology 36: 523-545.
• Andrew Cherlin, Bianca Frogner, David Ribar, and Robert Moffitt. 2009. “Welfare Reform in the Mid-2000s: How African American and Hispanic Families in Three Cities are Faring.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 621(1): 178-201.

Americans’ attitudes towards welfare — particularly myths that certain groups overuse programs such as welfare and food stamps — are heavily rooted in politics of race and racism. In fact, several scholars have illustrated how political and ideological opposition to social spending are shaped by racial appeals. Even in the post Civil Rights era, political figures use implicit messaging and coded language to attack social spending programs and recipients of these programs, subtly implying racial minorities overuse such programs, thus perpetuating these racist narratives.

• Sanford Schram, Joe Soss, and Richard C. Fording. 2003. Race and the Politics of Welfare Reform. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
• Joshua J. Dyck and Laura S. Hussey. 2008. “The End of Welfare as We Know It?Durable Attitudes in a Changing Information Environment.” Public Opinion Quarterly 72(4): 589-618.
• Ian Haney López. 2014. Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. New York: Oxford University Press.

Miller’s plan to bar citizenship for immigrants who have used social spending programs must also be understood as a consequence of historical racism in the American welfare state. During the 19th and 20th centuries, white working-class immigrants from a variety of European countries accessed social spending programs, opportunities for home ownership, and union membership due to their racial privilege.  On the other hand, Blacks and other non-white groups — including non-white immigrants– were denied the same opportunities. This heightened racial inequality while simultaneously validating racist beliefs about minorities and immigrants. In short, while Miller’s plan seems to primarily focus on immigration, it most certainly also about race.

• Cybelle Fox. 2012. Three Worlds of Relief: Race, Immigration, and the American Welfare State from the Progressive Era to the New Deal. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Ira Katznelson. 2005. When Affirmative Action was White. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
• Vilna Bashi Treitler. 2013. The Ethnic Project: Transforming Racial Fiction into Ethnic Factions. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

Originally Posted September 14, 2016.

It’s September, which means students are zipping up their backpacks and sharpening their pencils for a new school year. For many kids, however, disciplinary actions like suspension and detention make school feel less like a place of learning and more like a minefield for getting into trouble. Some schools are experimenting with restorative justice practices to address disruptive behavior in lieu of more traditional means that often mean missing class. These new policies tend to take a lot of time and effort to implement, and very little research has been done regarding the efficacy of these restorative justice initiatives. However, research points to an array of problems with the more traditional, exclusionary methods educators have relied on in the past. 

Many schools have increased their use of punitive discipline and zero tolerance policies, despite drops in school-based delinquency. A shift in school disciplinary procedures would likely result in fewer days of missed tests and lectures for African American students, who are the most likely to receive suspension as a punishment in schools, especially in more racially diverse schools. Research shows that black students are more likely to receive the brunt of disciplinary action when overall delinquent behavior in school is low because teachers and administrators perceive them as threatening day-to-day proceedings.  

• Tamela McNulty Eitle and David James Eitle. 2004. “Inequality, Segregation, and the Overrepresentation of African Americans in School Suspensions.” Sociological Perspectives 47(3): 269-287.
• Kelly Welch, and Allison Ann Payne. 2010.  “Racial Threat and Punitive School Discipline.” Social Problems 57(1): 25-48.

Educators often evaluate certain behaviors and mannerisms like punctuality, quiet voices, and particular styles of dress as indicative of being good students. These perceptions of good behavior often stem from teachers’ raced and classed biases regarding what a model student looks like. But many of the characteristics that teachers think make bad apples, like tardiness and attendance inconsistencies, are in fact the same red flags that a student is at risk of dropping out of school. And new research finds that exclusionary punishments like detention and suspension lead to lower test scores and increased tensions between teachers and students.

• Brea Perry and Edward W. Morris. 2014. “Suspending Progress: Collateral Consequences of Exclusionary Punishment in Public Schools.” American Sociological Review 79(6): 1067-1087.
• Edward W. Morris 2005. ““Tuck in That Shirt!” Race, Class, Gender, and Discipline in an Urban School.” Sociological Perspectives 48(1): 25-48.