The History of "Zero Tolerance" in American Public Schooling

Through a case study of the Los Angeles city school district from the 1950s through the 1970s, Judith Kafka explores the intersection of race, politics, and the bureaucratic organization of schooling. Kafka argues that control over discipline became increasingly centralized in the second half of the twentieth century in response to pressures exerted by teachers, parents, students, principals, and local politicians - often at different historical moments, and for different purposes. Kafka demonstrates that the racial inequities produced by today's school discipline policies were not inevitable, nor are they immutable.

Auteur
Judith Kafka is Associate Professor of Educational Policy and History of Education at School of Public Affairs, Baruch College, City University of New York, USA.

Contenu
Zero Tolerance and the Case of Los Angeles Discipline before Zero Tolerance, 1800-1950 Bureaucratizing Discipline in the Blackboard Jungle Struggle for Control in the 1960s The Death of in Loco Parentis * Reclaiming School Discipline