Session Information
05 SES 04 A, Supporting and Integrating Marginalised Young People
Paper Session
Contribution
School can be understood as an institution through which power circulates in multifarious ways.
School curricula represent legitimate bodies of knowledge, rules define which behavior is accepted and which is not. Spatial structures serve the purpose of disciplining and observation, methods of testing and analysis help to generate complex knowledge about students. Through a Foucauldian lens, school appears as a ‘dispositif’ of power, a complex network of material structures, discursive and non-discursive practices which serves to produce the modern individual (Foucault, 1978). A substantial amount of research argues that power structures have continually transformed toward more soft and subtle approaches. Those ‘technologies of power’ associated with modern governmentality and the societies of control (Deleuze, 1992) no longer target the ‘docile body’ by physical discipline (Foucault, 1995) but strive to produce a self-governing entrepreneurial subject through neoliberal discursive invocation. However, the argument can be made as well that school still reflects the logic of the disciplinary society and that those systems of school discipline developed during the 19th Century are still very much in place.
The question whether the ‘shift’ towards a less rigid and less punitive ‘governmental’ discipline is extensive and whether it has affected most parts of the educational system therefore remains to be further explored. And it becomes even more relevant when the link between power, inequality and social marginalization is considered. This link can be studied when focusing on schools situated in segregated urban areas, as these schools are focal points of social and educational inequality within which disruptive behavior and problems with classroom management seem to be more prominent than elsewhere (Fölker, Hertel, Pfaff & Wieneke, 2013; Racherbäumer, Funke, Ackeren & Clausen, 2013; Weiner, 2003). Research suggests that the already given tendency of educational systems to reproduce structures of class and ethnic differences intensifies within these schools, with pedagogical practices playing a potentially crucial role in perpetuating or counteracting dynamics of misrecognition, discrimination, and territorial stigmatization (Sernhede, 2011; Wacquant, 2000, 2007; Wellgraf, 2018).
The importance of disciplinary practices for dynamics of marginalization has been stressed especially by studies from the US-American discourse, showing how Zero-Tolerance approaches not only fail to create less disruptive educational environments, but happen to further disadvantage those students who are already marginalized, reproducing ethnic differences through practices of punishment and exclusionary discipline. Firstly, studies on the relation between the discipline gap and the achievement gap show that racial disparities in educational achievement and in the intensity and frequency of punitive school discipline reproduce each other (Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera, 2010; Skiba et al., 2011). Secondly, qualitative studies looking at the ‘micro level’ of disciplinary practice have repeatedly shown how cultural stereotypes and images about ethnic minority groups are closely intertwined with punitive school discipline (Ferguson, 2000; Gray, 2016; Morris, 2005).
Within the German educational research discourse, literature on the relationship between school discipline and marginalization is scarce. The paper at hand presents results from a study investigating disciplinary practices within schools in deprived urban areas through a qualitative-reconstructive approach (Hertel 2020). Drawing on Foucauldian concepts, the study has investigated the implicit knowledge underpinning disciplinary practices as well as ‘disciplinary cultures’ of schools and their interplay with established systems of power. The presentation at ECER 2023 will outline the main results and reflect on them against the backdrop of the conference theme, raising the question of how school discipline tends to value or de-value cultural and social diversity in school.
Method
The study was carried out as a qualitative-reconstructive analysis of interviews and group discussions. The data was obtained in three different urban schools situated in deprived areas within German major cities and mainly attended by students from disadvantaged milieus. Most students had a migration background. In each school, teachers and students were included into the sample. The interviews and group discussions have then been transcribed verbatim and analyzed using the documentary method (Bohnsack, 2010, 2017). This method draws on concepts from Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge. It is based on the assumption that social practice is driven by different ‘layers’ of knowledge. While theories, programs and institutional norms are constituted by explicit knowledge, everyday social practice and routine behaviors are mainly driven by habitual and practical knowledge. This type or layer of knowledge is produced within and through collective experience and remains mostly implicit. The documentary method aims at the systematic reconstruction of this implicit layer of knowledge and the ‘modi operandi’ underpinning social practice, which is achieved by a three-step approach: The first step consists of the ‘formulating interpretation’, which identifies the analyzed material’s content on an explicit level. The second step, called ‘reflecting interpretation’, aims at the analysis of habitual knowledge by reconstructing the implicit framework of meaning within which a certain topic is processed (Bohnsack 2010, pp. 110f.). In order to achieve this goal, those passages within the data material characterized by high metaphorical and interactive density are chosen for in-depth analysis, as they provide privileged access to the implicit framework of knowledge driving a subject’s or group’s practice (ibid., pp. 104f.). In the third step, a typology is generated through comparative analysis. Within the study presented here, two different types of ‘knowledge of power’ underpinning disciplinary practice of teachers were identified and theorized on the backdrop of Foucauldian theory of power (see section “conclusion”). Further analysis then focused on the highly contrasting ‘disciplinary cultures’ of two of the schools in the sample. This part of the analysis reconstructed the mechanisms and dynamics of disciplinary culture anchored in the schools’ history and their relationships with the urban environment, the role of spatial arrangements and the reproduction of disciplinary culture through interactions between teachers. Finally, the interactions and experiences of students were considered as well by showing how they relate to their school’s disciplinary culture.
Expected Outcomes
The analysis identified two overarching types of ‘power knowledge’ which drive different practices of school discipline. Both types are underpinned by contrasting modes of constructing students as ‘pedagogical subjects’: The ‘repressive type’ unilaterally imposes social and behavioral norms through harsh punishment and control. In this type, the logics and punitive techniques of the ‘disciplinary society’ (Foucault 1995) are very much dominant. Disciplinary practices of the repressive type aim to control and contain the behavior of students which are constructed as socially deficient and notoriously deviant individuals. In and through this type of school discipline, the students’ already given position of social and symbolic marginalization is reproduced and consolidated. By contrast, the ‘explorative type’ tends to handle social and behavioral norms more flexible. Instead of punishment, this type employs disciplinary measures of subtle control and focusses on questioning and on attempts of understanding students’ motives and behaviors. Accordingly, students are not constructed as notorious deviants, but as victims of their marginalized circumstances. Yet, this type of discipline is anything but powerless, as it aims at generating knowledge and uncovering ‘inner truths‘, which then can be used to softly but more efficiently ‘govern’ the individuals. Here, techniques of pastoral power are at play (Foucault, 1983). Cultural and class related differences are met with more acceptance and recognition and integrated into practices of ‘gentle’ discipline and control. However, also within the explorative type, disciplinary power (Foucault 1995) never fully vanishes, as it constitutes the structural canvas on which school discipline unfolds. The presentation at ECER 2023 will outline the theoretical framework, methods and empirical results of the study. Finally, the types of disciplinary practice described above will be systematically reflected with regard to their relation to social, class, and ethnic diversity.
References
Bohnsack, R. (2010). Documentary Method and Group Discussion. In R. Bohnsack, N. Pfaff, & W. Weller (Eds.), Qualitative Analysis and Documentary Method in International Educational Research (pp. 99-124). Opladen/Farmington Hills. Bohnsack, R. (2017). Praxeologische Wissenssoziologie. Opladen/Toronto. Deleuze, G. (1992). Postscript on the Societies of Control. October, 59, 3-7. Ferguson, A. A. (2000). Bad Boys. Public Schools in the Making of Black Masculinity. Michigan. Fölker, L., Hertel, T., Pfaff, N., & Wieneke, J. (2013). „Zahnlose Tiger“ und ihr Kerngeschäft – Die Abwesenheit schulischer Ordnung als Strukturproblem an Schulen in schwieriger Lage. Zeitschrift für interpretative Schul- und Unterrichtsforschung, 2(1), 87-110. Foucault, M. (1978). Dispositive der Macht. Michel Foucault über Sexualität, Wissen und Wahrheit. Berlin. Foucault, M. (1983). The Subject and Power. In H. L. Dreyfus & P. Rabinow (Eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (2. ed., pp. 208-226). Chicago. Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York. Gray, M. S. (2016). Saving the Lost Boys: Narratives of Discipline Disproportionality. Educational Leadership and Administration: Teaching and Program Development, 27, 53-80. Gregory, A., Skiba, R. J., & Noguera, P. A. (2010). The Achievement Gap and the Discipline Gap: Two Sides of the Same Coin? Educational Researcher, 39(1), 59-68. Hertel, T. (2020). Entziffern und Strafen. Schulische Disziplin zwischen Macht und Marginalisierung. Bielefeld. Morris, E. W. (2005). “Tuck in that Shirt!” Race, Class, Gender, and Discipline in an Urban School. Sociological Perspectives, 48(1), 25-48. Racherbäumer, K., Funke, C., Ackeren, I. v., & Clausen, M. (2013). Schuleffektivitätsforschung und die Frage nach guten Schulen in schwierigen Kontexten. In R. Becker & A. Schulze (Eds.), Bildungskontexte. Strukturelle Voraussetzungen und Ursachen ungleicher Bildungschancen (pp. 239-267). Wiesbaden. Sernhede, O. (2011). School, Youth Culture and Territorial Stigmatization in Swedish Metropolitan Districts. Young, 19(2), 159-180. Skiba, R. J., Horner, R. H., Chung, C.-G., Rausch, M. K., May, S. L., & Tobin, T. (2011). Race Is Not Neutral: A National Investigation of African American and Latino Disproportionality in School Discipline. School Psychology Review, 40(1), 85-107. Wacquant, L. (2000). Deadly symbiosis. When ghetto and prison meet and mesh. Punishment & Society, 3(1), 95-133. Wacquant, L. (2007). Territorial Stigmatization in the Age of Advanced Marginality. Thesis Eleven, 91(1), 66-77. Weiner, L. (2003). Why Is Classroom Management So Vexing to Urban Teachers? Theory into Practice, 42(4), 305-312. Wellgraf, S. (2018). Schule der Gefühle. Zur emotionalen Erfahrung von Minderwertigkeit in neoliberalen Zeiten. Bielefeld.
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