The Grammar of School Discipline: Removal, Resistance, and Reform in Alabama Schools

By Hannah Carson Baggett

The Grammar of School Discipline examines how seemingly discrete school discipline policies and practices constitute a particular grammar: Removal, Resistance and Reform. Weaving numeric data with portraits of students and school practitioners, the authors detail a nuanced landscape of school discipline in Alabama and its anti-Black foundations. The removal of Black students can be traced to the antebellum construction of Blackness as criminal, deviant, and deserving of punishment. A focus on resistance centers the agency that students and practitioners exercise despite anti-Black removal. An exploration of specific reform efforts emphasizes that even the most well-intentioned and well-organized reforms are limited when the removal of students remains an option for practitioners. The authors end with an appeal to educational stakeholders to repair the harms that these anti-Black policies and practices inflict on students and communities, and thus move towards repairing the damage that white supremacy inflicts on everyone's humanity.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1793601771
• ISBN13: 9781793601773
• Release Date: April 2023
• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Length: 226 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"