Children and young people who come into conflict with the law tend to be disengaged with education and learning. This paper reports on research from an EU Erasmus+ project in Spain, Italy, Germany and the UK. The research focused on the impact of Authentic Inquiry (AI) on learners in custodial or youth justice settings and the impact on educators…

Goal-setting plays a significant role in one's life and contributes to one's success (Locke & Latham, 2012, 2006, 1990). As high school students approach the end of their K-12 education, they benefit from setting goals and planning for their future. They also profit from strategizing and designing an action plan that delineates how they will…

Drawing on experiential, literary and historical narratives, this article connects the long history shaping the school-to-prison-pipeline to the contemporary experiences of Black youth in today's educational system. It maps abolitionism from its origins as a movement to end slavery through the ongoing Black freedom struggles that have challenged…

Hanau ka 'aina, hanau ke ali'i, hanau ke kanaka. This 'olelo no'eau is a Hawaiian proverb that means the land, the chiefs, and the people belong together. This translation suggests that the land and people of Hawai'i are interconnected, both enacting collective values that shape and sustain the other through language and cultural practices. As the…

This study is a content analysis of K-12 U.S. history curriculum standards from 50 states regarding curricular re/presentation of Asian Americans. The guiding research questions are as follows: (1) What is the frequency of Asian American content covered in K-12 U.S. history standards from 50 states? (2) How do the standards depict Asian Americans…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how school leaders in Title I elementary (K-8) schools in the Atlantic Coast region describe the factors that lead black male students to the school-to-prison (STPP), what strategies they use to create social justice within the school and divert students from the school-to-prison…

In this essay, I use the singing caged bird as a mental model for addressing carceral logics generally and carcerality in K-12 and higher education, specifically. First, I offer a high-level overview of carceral logics to complement and extend what is offered in other sections of this volume by participating authors. Then, I segue into deeper…

Growing evidence points to increased female involvement in the juvenile justice system and a correlation to adult justice system involvement (Morris & Perry, 2017). However, there is an absence of individual perspectives and lived experiences from within the school-to-prison pipeline (Cole and Cohen, 2013). This qualitative study investigates…

Today, and on any given day in the U.S., tens of thousands of students are attending school behind bars. Juvenile justice education fails many of these students, resulting in a double punishment for youth: the punitive experience of incarceration for their alleged offense and the potentially catastrophic disruptions of their educational pathway.…

Mirroring trends in the legal system, discipline within education has adopted zero-tolerance policies in an attempt to curb undesired behaviors in school. K-12 schools have expanded the use of exclusionary discipline policies for lesser offenses, giving way to the phenomenon known as the school-to-prison-pipeline (STPP), which disproportionately…

In a one-day count in 2018, an estimated 37,529 youths resided in juvenile placement facilities across the United States. While the estimated number of juveniles in residential placement facilities has dropped by more than half over 20 years, alternative placement to other government juvenile facilities continues to remove youths from their…

This study presents an examination of the institution of American slavery as it relates to current hegemonic issues in education, revealing a persistence of slave trade ideology through education and challenging the slow and possibly deliberate progress to close the Achievement Gap/Debt.

On a given day, more than 43,000 youths who largely identify as students of color and are disproportionately male are held in residential placement facilities as a result of involvement with the juvenile justice system. More than two-thirds of youths living in placement facilities who participated in a national survey shared aspirations to…

While a robust body of research has documented the intricate relationship between our nation's education and penal systems, the weight of this work has focused on primary and secondary schools, absolving colleges and universities of their role in the carceral state. In this essay, we describe some of the ways in which higher education institutions…

Statistical reports confirm that the female incarcerated population is not only increasing, but the frequency of mental disorders among this vulnerable population is accelerating. Women's pathways to crime show that gender matters significantly in shaping criminality. The frequency of mental disorders among incarcerated females is much higher than…