From “wait ‘em out” to push them out: Teachers’ reflections on passive and active modes of racialized school exclusion

Much has been written about the school-to-prison pipeline and the larger punitive turn within schools in the United States. This research has documented disturbing racialized disparities and disproportionate impacts on youth who are diagnosed with disabilities. While this scholarship has highlighted how marginalized youth encounter exclusionary forms of punishment, what is often missing is an understanding of how practitioners experience the policies, practices, and consequences of the school-prison nexus. In this study, the unique career experiences of individuals who worked as both teachers and juvenile justice practitioners in the Southwestern United States are analyzed. The reflections of practitioners who worked at both ends of the school-to-prison pipeline uncover a range of exclusionary practices in schools that is broader than what current conceptions suggest. This study adds important nuance to the literature by revealing how some educators facilitate school dropout through passive modes of racialized exclusion in addition to those that actively push out minoritized students. The article outlines three distinct categories of racialized school exclusion, examines their impacts, discusses how subtle modes of exclusion may relate to more overt punishments, and explores the broader context under which this range of “passive” to “active” modes of educational exclusion develops and operates.