Why Teachers Kick Kids Out of Class

Exclusionary school discipline, more commonly known as kicking kids out of class or school, begins when teachers send disruptive students to the principal's office and leads to suspension or expulsion from school altogether. For more than 35 years, school suspension research in the United States has consistently documented that Black (and more recently Brown) students, particularly males, are disproportionately issued exclusionary school discipline consequences even though no evidence supports the claim that they are more disruptive than their peers. From a social justice perspective, exclusionary school discipline is oppressive education, yet few researchers set out to find ways to transform it. This book provides a complete research study that examines why four teachers in the same alternative education school use (or do not use) exclusionary discipline. The study was guided by a critical social practice framework and conducted with a critical microethnographic method to find potential spaces for transformation of oppressive education practices that perpetuate the disproportionality of Black and Brown students in exclusionary school discipline.