Time to revisit the ‘ colour of punishment’

Teachers indiscreetly stereotype students, unmindful of their respective social milieu. Treat each student for what he or she is; see how it works

Disciplinary issues, particularly, violent conflicts in schools are often seen as individual and behavioural issues. This affects how causes and implications of ‘ indiscipline’ are understood and how school staff respond to incidents. In a recent story in The

Conversation, Charles Bell discussed the question of school violence in the US. Based on interviews with parents and pupils he shows that the policy of school suspension used to tackle the problem of violence in American schools actually tends to be ineffective. Linking physical confrontations at school to violence experienced by students on the street, especially, as a result of race and/ or class- based deprivation and discrimination, Bell argues that students come to value, in themselves and in others, the ability to be “tough” and to fight ( back). Thus school suspension often becomes a badge of honour instead of something that needs to be avoided; it establishes suspended students as tough young people who can look after themselves and equally important, their friends.

A central point Bell and others have made in the context of the US relates to the ‘ colour of punishment’; for example, Russell Skiba and colleagues have shown that though African- American pupils are not necessarily disruptive more often than White pupils they tend to be punished more often. That is, teachers’ interpretation of incidents and actions and thus their response to “indiscipline” among students also vary by racial profiles of the students concerned. Thus both factors contributing to indiscipline and its consequences cannot be seen in isolation from structures of socioeconomic domination and marginalisation in society.

Similarly, scholars like Gillean McCluskey in the UK have argued that school violence needs to be understood and addressed within a framework that recognises social cleavages around race, gender and class. Firstly, bullying and harassment in classrooms and on playgrounds are part of the power relations and gender, race or class hierarchies functioning in wider society. Thus ethnic

minority stud en ts tend to experience racial abuse or name- calling. Gender and sexual orientation also regularly become bases of harassment, thanks to general prevalence of sexism and homophobia. Secondly, UK schools also ‘disproportionately’ exclude or suspend Black students. ( But as Kupchik, Green and Mowen demonstrate UK and USA differ in some important ways in their respective approaches to school violence). Again, both, the acts of indiscipline as well as consequences seem to be related closely to wider social realities of harassment and discrimination. McCluskey and colleagues have argued that emphasis on student behaviour causes teachers and policymakers to ignore the social and institutional contexts within which abuse, violence and other everyday micro aggressions can become normalised. During my own research with middle school students in central India ( urban Madhya Pradesh), I also found that being able to fight ( back) comes to be a valuable attribute because students realise that their survival and popularity could depend on that. But, at least, some of the boys tried to keep the more physical of their fights outside school. They explained that this was partly out of respect for teachers and the school and partly out of consideration for their own reputations. Yet interviews with students also revealed that violence becomes an integral part of many boys’ lives because of the systematic marginalisation they experienced outside school.

Living in localities where they have to fight over scarce resources like physical space and drinking water, boys often have to join neighbourhood groups to survive and win fights. Secondly, since political parties recruit foot- soldiers from these neighbourhoods different parties support and encourage formation of such groups to obtain help in organising political and cultural events; such events are used to cement links between various parties and communities of voters.

Poorer families also need political patronage to compensate for lack of other resources; for example, obtaining a bus pass or an electricity connection.

Lastly, dominant ideas about what it means to be a “man”, such as notions of “masculinity”, also drive young people to seek to create certain kinds of gendered identities for themselves. The sort of “toughness” that helps survive fights and face- offs is often seen as an important and specifically masculine attribute which has to be proved in encounters with teachers and peers.

Bell argues that often violent incidents in school are linked with relationships and conflicts existing in students’ neighbourhoods. Living within brutal structures of class, race and/ or caste- based discrimination, students from socioeconomically marginalised communities witness violence, deprivation and hopelessness on the one hand, and small everyday efforts to live and work with dignity on the other.

However, teachers and administrators do not always appreciate or empathise with these experiences and their effects; particularly when it comes to understanding and addressing school violence and other indiscipline. For example, in India, middle class, upper caste teachers often fail to see what it means for students and families to survive on small and uncertain incomes, or deal with the stigmatisation that minority or so- called lower caste communities may face.

( None of this is to say that students from better off communities do not indulge in violent acts at school; but consequences for them tend to vary vastly.)

Rather than understand how class or race shapes their students’ everyday life, teachers tend to stereotype and label them: for example, teachers I interviewed lamented about the lack of ‘ moral values’ in ‘ labour class’ students.

Thus, instead of treating instances of violence and indiscipline as individual and behavioural issues which can only be addressed through harsh punishment it can be more fruitful to engage with the linkages between such incidents and wider social relations.

School is a social institution and as such, it is encumbered with the same power relations, conflicts and hierarchies as the rest of the society. How indiscipline is understood, who is held responsible for it and how it is addressed are all intensely social processes; appreciating this social character of the question of in/ discipline and punishment can allow teachers and administrators to develop more empathetic and effective solutions to school violence; for example, investing in more respectful and caring pupilteacher and pupil- pupil relationships, involving students in addressing issues of indiscipline, or taking the help of NGOs working in students’ neighbourhoods.