NCJ Number
95992
Date Published
1984
Length
181 pages
Annotation
This study examines the sociology of school discipline, using empirical data and site observation involving junior and senior high schools in a middle-sized Wisconsin community ('Middle City') and a junior-senior high school in a small Wisconsin farm community ('Rural Place').
Abstract
Conducted in 1977, the research used in-school anthropological observation, interviews with over 200 persons, and survey instruments administered to approximately 1,500 students and 200 teachers. The study focused on how the discipline system was integrated with and developed from the total organization of the school. Specifically, the research indicates how the empirical behaviors perceived as discipline derive from institutional and social-psychological constraints and the schooling milieu. The study discusses how schools can achieve a better fit between what they generally intend and what fit between what they generally intend and what they actually do. It defines further the key concepts which are central to this work -- order, autonomy, and discipline -- and suggests that schools which focus excessively on order may, paradoxically, achieve greater disorder than other schools with less rigorous regimes. An overview of discipline problems addresses questions of fairness and considers the troubled student, the troubled school, and the troubled teacher. The study also covers the role of formal disciplinary procedures in schools, focusing mainly on suspensions. Empirical findings about misbehavior, penalties, fairness, troubled actors, and formal justice are related to the conceptualization of discipline failures as system failures. Finally, the study offers recommendations on how schools can make changes in their discipline procedure. Tables, an index, and references are supplied. (Author summary modified).