| Description |
This dissertation is a theoretical explanation of how and why Brown male bodies have been the second-largest population of students to be adversely impacted by zero-tolerance school discipline policies in compulsory schooling. Though school discipline literature highlights the fact that LatinX men have been the second-largest group to be pushed out of schooling, there has been a significant gap explaining how and why this growing population is disproportionately punished. In order to make sense of this phenomena, I look to coloniality and racial capitalism as a lens of inquiry to understand how and why the pushout rate of LatinX men from compulsory schooling is neither accidental, reactional, nor bad policy, but rather a planned outcome in schooling as a result of how these bodies have been racialized as a racial "other." This racialization has shaped the type of schooling they are afforded-from tracking to segregation to curriculum-as a disposable, undesirable population in our political economy of the carceral state. Additionally, I take a social reproduction lens to explore at a macro-level how schools have criminalized LatinX men to justify their pushout rates and mass incarceration. In order to prove this theory, I examine the city of Sacramento-as the city gets more Brown, these youth have faced skyrocketing rates of incarceration, suspension, expulsion, and overall disinvestment in their education. Furthermore, in our current political climate of xenophobia, mob violence against LatinX communities, and mass incarceration, we see schools mirror these Zero-Tolerance trends nationwide. iv Though schools are sites of extreme forms of violence and criminalization, I see hope to disrupt this ongoing attack on LatinX men through tangible forms of intervention with various stakeholders. |
