ERIC Number: EJ1045711
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2014
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1066-5684
EISSN: N/A
Trouble at School: Understanding School Discipline Systems as Nets of Social Control
Irby, Decoteau J.
Equity & Excellence in Education, v47 n4 p513-530 2014
Getting in trouble at school is often a student's first point of entry into the school-to-prison pipeline. What trouble entails is shaped by underlying and complex notions of justice that operate in a given school setting. These notions of justice shape the range of responses social actors use to address students who break school rules. These include, as is the case in society at large, establishing strategies to stop rule violations or repeat offenses, punishing wrongdoers for their offenses, removing offenders from the community, teaching wrongdoers a lesson, and helping offenders to help themselves (Daly, 2001). In this article, I argue that improving school discipline is a matter of balancing and managing complex, differentiated, systems of trouble. To advance this understanding, I use a social constructionist perspective to theorize school discipline systems as nets of social control that, if too expansive and overly punitive, can be counterproductive to the educational mission of schools.
Descriptors: Discipline, Behavior Problems, Correctional Institutions, Institutionalized Persons, Institutional Mission, Social Control, Criminals, Discipline Policy, Justice, Student Behavior, Punishment
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A

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