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theses

The neoliberal focus on the “achievement gap” as the sole measure of educational inequity has contributed to the proliferation of “no-excuses” schools and practices based on the belief that they raise test scores for low-income students of color. This study challenges that conception of equity, asking instead how no-excuses classroom management—highly regimented behavior management techniques increasingly common in schools serving urban youth—impact students’ development as citizens who might act to combat the structural inequalities that frame life in their communities. Drawing upon practice theories of identity, I use ethnographic methods to examine how the day-to-day ways teachers restrict, guide and respond to students’ behavior shape students’ civic development. My findings highlight three major themes: students’ perceptions of institutional authority, relationships to their communities, and sense of self-efficacy or “voice.” Students wanted teachers to use their authority to insist upon safe, respectful environments where learning could occur, and to address misbehavior in ways that were supportive rather than punitive. However, they often experienced school rules as arbitrary and overly restrictive, and rule enforcement as punitive and unfair. Despite their critiques of school rules, students commonly identified themselves and one another as “good kids” or “bad kids” based on whether they tended to get in trouble, and they mirrored school discourse that framed success as an individual endeavor requiring separation from others. Finally, students were immersed in an institutional environment that emphasized the value of compliance and often penalized outspokenness; consequently, though some students chose to “speak up” anyway, they were aware that doing so came with substantial risks. I suggest that these experiences tend to encourage students to view institutional authority as unresponsive and unfair, to be wary of association with others in their community, particularly those who are struggling, and to regulate and repress their own voices in order to comply with institutional expectations and achieve “success.” Furthermore, while similar patterns may be found at many schools serving low-income students of color, I argue that certain features of the no-excuses model make such outcomes particularly likely. Ultimately, these findings challenge the notion that no-excuses practices promote educational equity. They also highlight the need for teachers and scholars to attend to “classroom management” not simply as a means to the end of academic learning, but as a complex pedagogical task with social-emotional, racial and civic significance.

ETD_7938

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Eliot James Graham

doi:10.7282/T3Z89G8B

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.