This article explores how schools reproduce race, class, and gender inequality through the regulation of students' bodies. Using ethnographic data from an urban school, I examine how assumptions guiding bodily discipline differed for different groups of students. First, adults at the school tended to view the behaviors of African American girls as not “ladylike” and attempted to discipline them into dress and manners considered more gender appropriate. Second, school officials tended to view the behaviors of Latino boys as especially threatening, and members of this group often received strict, punitive discipline. Third, school officials tended to view the behaviors of white and Asian American students as nonthreatening and gender appropriate and disciplined these students less strictly. To conclude, I discuss the importance of viewing race, class, and gender in schools simultaneously and the problems associated with disciplinary reform in education.

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School disciplinary processes are an important mechanism of inequality in education. Most prior research in this area focuses on the significantly higher rates of punishment among African American boys, but in this article, we turn our attention to the discipline of African American girls. Using advanced multilevel models and a longitudinal data set of detailed school discipline records, we analyze interactions between race and gender on office referrals. The results show troubling and significant disparities in the punishment of African American girls. Controlling for background variables, black girls are three times more likely than white girls to receive an office referral; this difference is substantially wider than the gap between black boys and white boys. Moreover, black girls receive disproportionate referrals for infractions such as disruptive behavior, dress code violations, disobedience, and aggressive behavior. We argue that these infractions are subjective and influenced by gendered interpretations. Using the framework of intersectionality, we propose that school discipline penalizes African American girls for behaviors perceived to transgress normative standards of femininity.

Although much scholarship has focused on the schooling experiences of African American boys, this article demonstrates that African American girls encounter unique educational perceptions and obstacles. Black girls in a predominately minority school performed well academically, but educators often questioned their manners and behavior. Some tried to mold many of these girls into “ladies,” which entailed curbing behavior perceived as “loud” and assertive. This article advances theories of intersectionality by showing how race and class shape perceptions of femininity for Black girls, and how the encouragement of more traditionally feminine behavior could ultimately limit their academic potential.

This article explores how teachers perceived and interacted with white students in a predominately racial/ethnic minority school in Texas. On the basis of ethnographic data, the author found that different teachers expressed different views of the family and class backgrounds of white students in this setting, which ranged from “middle class” to “trailer trash.” These views of social class stemmed from how teachers interpreted the whiteness of students in this predominately minority context and influenced how they reacted to these students academically. An interesting finding was that the black teachers and the white teachers had different perceptions of these white students. The black teachers typically saw the white students as middle class and good students, whereas the white teachers tended to view the students as low income and unremarkable students. The results of this study clarify the processes of teachers' perceptions and white advantage.