Educational environments that are structured by race perpetuate poor mental health for Black adolescents. This empirical relationship is pronounced when it is examined through Racial Battle Fatigue ...theory, which provides a framework that links educational environments and poor psychological health of Black students. School police have a major effect on Black adolescents' educational and health experiences and trajectories. The purpose of this person-centered study was to assess the risk of Black students' depressive symptoms who were stopped by school police, saw other students stopped by school police, or experienced school discipline.
Data on Black student youths from the Fragile Families Study Year 15 wave (N = 1,601) were used to conduct a latent class analysis to identify subgroups of school policing (ie, being stopped by school police, seeing other students stopped by school police) and school discipline on the distal outcome of depressive symptoms. Covariates included demographic and school attachment.
We identified 4 distinct Black student subgroups: (1) unscathed no school policing or discipline reported; (2) school disciplined; (3) combined school policing; and (4) school policed arrested by police. Each subgroup had an incremental increase in mean depressive symptom scores. Compared to the unscathed subgroup, each subgroup also had lower school attachment.
This study disrupts the notion that education environments are a social determinant of health and a great equalizer. This study critically exposes how educational institutions complicit with school policing are associated with racism-related mental health conditions of Black youths.
Using the state of Georgia as a backdrop, this paper highlights the current state of the GFSA (Gun-Free Schools Act) in the United States of America, initially enacted in 1994, 30 years later. The ...progress of school-based ZTPs (Zero Tolerance Policies) in practice shows that progress remains slow a quarter of a century later. In response, this paper looks at the origins of school-level ZTPs, the intended and unintended consequences and identifies strategies for making substantial progress moving forward. Using Georgia law and the Fulton County school system as drivers toward change, this paper looks at State, County, and Regional-level implementation of School-based ZTPs, in alignment with the GA legal standard, to add to the existing knowledge base in this realm. By pointing to what has and has not been working, this paper seeks to bring efficacious strategies for improvement to the forefront (i.e., increasing the use of positive, collaborative behavior interventions and supports, using aggregate data to reduce the number of disciplinary actions that force students out of the classroom, creating reasonable limits on the use of law enforcement in public schools) to allow all students to learn in environments that are safe, non-punitive, and impartial.
Political dialogue among citizens offers numerous potential contributions to American politics, but attainment of these benefits hinges largely on the extent to which conversations cross lines of ...political difference. In what contexts are cross-cutting interactions most likely to thrive? Using data from five surveys, we find consistent evidence that the workplace is the social context best positioned to facilitate cross-cutting political discourse. Political discussion in the workplace involves a large number of discussants, and it involves greater exposure to people of dissimilar perspectives than does discussion in contexts such as the family, the neighborhood, or the voluntary association. We next consider whether workplace-based interactions are capable of producing beneficial effects. Despite the notoriously weak nature of work-based social ties, we find evidence that workplace-based exposure to differing political views increases people's knowledge of rationales for political perspectives other than their own and also fosters political tolerance.
Reform of school zero tolerance discipline policies is complicated by a lack of systematic evidence on the prevalence and characteristics of such policies. Through document analysis, this study ...compares explicit zero tolerance laws/policies and mandatory expulsion laws/policies across the domains of federal law, state law, district policy, and media portrayal. Results suggest that explicit zero tolerance laws and policies are rare, appearing in less than one in seven states or districts, whereas mandatory expulsion laws/policies are more common. Districts serving high proportions of minority students as well as districts consisting only of charter schools are more likely to have mandatory expulsion policies for certain offenses. Additionally, district zero tolerance policies apply to a broader set of offenses than state laws. Finally, state and district laws/policies tend to not apply to minor offenses to the degree suggested by media coverage. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.
In recent decades, K-12 school discipline policies and practices have garnered increasing attention among researchers, policymakers, and educators. Disproportionalities in school discipline raise ...serious questions about educational equity. This study provides a comprehensive review of the extant literature on the contributors to racial, gender, and income disparities in disciplinary outcomes, and the effectiveness of emerging alternatives to exclusionary disciplinary approaches. Our findings indicate that the causes of the disparities are numerous and multifaceted. Although low-income and minority students experience suspensions and expulsions at higher rates than their peers, these differences cannot be solely attributed to socioeconomic status or increased misbehavior. Instead, school and classroom occurrences that result from the policies, practices, and perspectives of teachers and principals appear to play an important role in explaining the disparities. There are conceptual and open empirical questions on whether and how some of the various alternatives are working to counter the discipline disparities.
This paper focuses on the diffusion of zero tolerance policing in Brazil. It argues that the global diffusion of security practices and technologies occurs through a multiplicity of channels operated ...by private security companies. Based on a multi-sited ethnography of electronic security fairs in São Paulo and a discourse analysis of publications distributed in these fairs, the paper discusses how these actors perform a semantic continuum between crime and existential threats. The consolidation of this continuum favors local attempts on the toughening of law enforcement and police intrusiveness, facilitating the marketing of transnational security models and technologies.
The contested zero-tolerance policy of the United Nations (UN) regulates sexual relations between peacekeepers and civilians while on mission. Though the policy is intended to protect civilians from ...sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), many have argued, conversely, that it exacerbates their precarity and undermines female sexual agency. This study pushes these debates further by examining how sexual regulatory frameworks endorsed by the UN directly and indirectly impact female peacekeepers. Drawing on interviews conducted with police officers, soldiers, and gendarmes, as well as elite decision makers across four countries (Ghana, Zambia, Uruguay, and Senegal), we argue that strict regulation of sexual behaviors can limit women's ability to meaningfully participate in peacekeeping operations in two ways. First, it incentivizes and legitimizes domestic security institutions' decisions to extend "protectionist" zero-tolerance policies to female peacekeepers. When taken to the extreme, these policies can be enforced through gender segregation models that marginalize women in the workplace. Second, banning sex with civilians can inversely channel sexual demands toward female peacekeepers. This can contribute to a hypersexualized work environment in which SEA and harassment is rife. These findings reinforce the need to reconsider policy frameworks governing sexual relations and raise urgent questions regarding the sexual agency of female peacekeepers.
Governing by slogans Sardoč, Mitja; Prebilič, Vladimir
Policy futures in education,
10/2023, Volume:
21, Issue:
7
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Throughout recorded history, slogans have been an important part of our public life. From political rhetoric and propaganda, to social movements and awareness-raising campaigns, their usage has ...overcome historical periods, cultural barriers, ethnic affiliation, political systems, party allegiance or personal taste. Arguably more than any other linguistic ‘device’, slogans deliver a clearly recognizable message with as little complexity as possible. Nevertheless, despite their rhetorical ‘economy’, the narratives provided by slogans have also been associated with a simplified or even reductionist portrayal of otherwise complex or controversial phenomena. This article aims to address a range of previously neglected aspects associated with slogans and governmentality. The introductory part provides a genealogy of discussions over slogans and the main shortcomings the use of slogans has been associated with. The central part takes a closer look at zero tolerance, a flagship policy associated with the neoliberal logic of governance. The concluding part of this article outlines the subversive character associated with the mechanism of sloganization.
This paper reviews evidence of the school-to-prison pipeline, a confluence of two child- and adolescent-caring systems—schools and juvenile courts—that simultaneously shifted over the past generation ...from rehabilitative to punitive paradigms. While there was crossover impact between these systems, the movements were both independent and inter-dependent. In the school systems, and particularly those that are overburdened and underfinanced, many students have been increasingly suspended and expelled due to criminalizing both typical adolescent developmental behaviors as well as low-level type misdemeanors: acting out in class, truancy, fighting, and other similar offenses. The increased use of zero tolerance policies and police (safety resource officers) in the schools has exponentially increased arrests and referrals to the juvenile courts. While impacting many, unfortunately, these changes disproportionately affect vulnerable children, adolescents, and their families. Thus, millions of young people have become encapsulated in harmful punitive systems. Very few of these young people are actually appropriately involved, in that they do not pose safety risks to their schools or communities. Thus, the school-to-prison pipeline does not improve school or community safety.
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