Description

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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.

About the Author

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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.

Praise For…

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"The History of Zero Tolerance in American Public Schooling is an important scholarly contribution to the history of American education.It will undoubtedly serve as a guidebook for scholars studying school discipline for many years to come.Using Los Angeles as a case study to anchor her work, Kafka demonstrates how an often irrational fear of violence has served as an impetus for highly punitive discipline policies in schools.Supported by extensive historical research, this book should also help policymakers and educators to question some of the assumptions about the nature of violence in school that have led to the draconian policies we now have in many places.It should also prompt the reasonable among us to ask whether the remedy (zero tolerance) may be worse than the ailment it was designed to address." - Pedro A. Noguera, Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Development, Executive Director, Metropolitan Center for Urban Education, New York University