Empirical research has established that exclusionary discipline is applied to black students at a higher rate than white students for similar offenses, and that this disproportionality cannot be attributed to the severity or frequency of misconduct. Exclusionary discipline, which removes a student from the educational setting, poses significant…

This study applies critical theory to examine the relationship that exists between teachers and students in the classroom and whether the classroom is a microcosm of social injustice, replicating the inequities between those in a position of power and those that are subject to them. The purpose of the study was to expose gaps in current practices…

The curiosity on how disciplinary power operates in a secondary school in the context of Panoptic surveillance became our motive. We designed the study as a single case study in qualitative approach to grasp the holistic understanding of disciplinary power, surveillance, and resistance to it in a secondary school. The data were obtained by a set…

The authoritative school climate construct, or the degree to which schools demonstrate student support and disciplinary structure, predicts several important student outcomes (e.g., racial suspension gap, student disengagement). To better understand this construct, we used multilevel latent class analysis to identify latent classes of student…

Based on an ethnographic study at a middle school in a Midwestern city, this article examines the difficulty in creating anti-racist educational spaces, even in schools with a stated desire to do so. The school's curriculum was mainly based on teachers' abstract ideas of social justice and was not grounded in students' everyday realities. It…

The current study examined the unofficial implementation of direct-democratic decision-making assemblies in three typical public (state) schools of consecutive educational levels (kindergarten, primary and middle school) in a village in Greece. The study drew on Michel Foucault's analysis of "power technologies" and "power…

Utilising the theoretical frameworks of theory of power and theory of performativity, this case study explored how learners exercised agency in the construction of their identity in school discourses. Data capture incorporated a mix of a survey, semi-structured interviews and field notes. Data was analysed using content analysis. A total of 90…

To understand patterns of co-option and tension between discourses of creativity on the one hand, and discourses of school management and administration on the other, it is important to bring these discourses into contact with each other. This paper considers ideas of risk-taking, autonomy, novelty and flexibility, all of which are frequently…

Disparities in school discipline across lines of race and disability status represent one of the most pressing issues in the field of education today. While there are many factors that perpetuate these disparities, teachers and their approaches to classroom management likely play a role. As evidence emerges on the relationship between race,…

To tackle the debate surrounding the tension between knowledge and power in online education for adolescents and between freedom and control at large, this study examines how disciplinary power was exercised and resisted in a Chinese setting of online compulsory education during the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. Overall, 60 participants, including…

Drawing from a larger study of teacher empathy, this article offers a critical race analysis of three teachers' "dispositions" to discern (a) their social and emotional competencies (SEC) and (b) evidence of "transformative" social and emotional learning (SEL). Data sources include one-on-one teacher interviews, focus groups,…

Restorative justice (RJ) practices have expanded significantly with the aim of improving school safety. Despite RJ's potential for transformative change, the factors driving these changes have rarely been the focus of rigorous scientific investigation. This qualitative study applies a system change framework to examine how organizational system…

In 2018, reflecting in this journal on the arrival of the 'age of consent' into sexuality education, Jen Gilbert questioned what would happen to a concept drawn in part from legal contexts, but partly also driven by the passion of feminist activists, when it met the demands and logics -- the learning outcomes and lesson plans -- of the classroom.…

We explore the dynamics of nurturing, caring, and enabling in a social justice school and how a problematic context of educational enabling can develop when notions of nurturing are not balanced with consistent disciplinary consequences. In-depth interviews were conducted with eight school staff, teachers, and a student at a social justice urban…

Within the tradition of ethnographic classroom research, this paper studies how pupils with a minority background are disciplined and participate in different school subjects such as Danish, English, math and science in Danish primary and lower secondary school settings. Whereas most research on minority children in classroom contexts focuses…