Getting Rid of Troublemakers: High School Disciplinary Procedures and the Production of Dropouts

This paper examines the routine disciplinary procedures of an inner-city high school. The analysis shows that school policies and procedures encourage disciplinarians to use suspensions, transfers, and involuntary “drops” to “get rid of”students they deem “troublemakers.” The indicators disciplinarians use to identify “troublemakers” are the same factors that, according to educational research, place students “at risk” of dropping out. Because a disproportionate number of urban black and Hispanic students come from circumstances that interfere with attendance and attention or produce behaviors school workers define as insubordinate or disobedient, routine disciplinary practices that exclude “troublemakers” may be a mechanism through which the school helps perpetuate racial and class stratification in the larger society.