Researcher ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0008-6158-3656
Graduation Year
2023
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Sociology
Reader 1
Dr. Alicia D. Bonaparte
Reader 2
Dr. Marilyn Grell-Brisk
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2023 Quentin Jenkins
Abstract
School officials have disproportionately applied disciplinary policies and exclusionary practices to Black and LGBTQ youth, causing those students to be negatively sanctioned. Characterized by instruments of surveillance, metal detectors, and the presence of law enforcement, schools in the United States have significantly exacerbated the negative experiences these children have within educational spaces. Schools foster “prison-like” environments and subject Black LGBTQ youth to hyper-surveillance, thus increasing their likelihood of coming in contact with the juvenile justice system. Grounded in BlackCrit and Quare theory, this paper analyzes how the coupled intersecting identities of Blackness and Queerness lead Black LGBTQ youth to have disparate encounters with school discipline and punishment which negatively affects their schooling experiences. To understand their lived experiences, semi-structured interviews were conducted with current college students who attended high schools in major metropolitan cities. I find that the space Black LGBTQ students inhabit within school disciplinary structures, as well as their quotidian interactions with school officials, lead to distinct differences in the approach, method, and dispensation of discipline and punishment. Within these educational spaces, administrators and officials perpetuate Black suffering, criminalize and punish Black LGBTQ students differently than their cis-gendered counterparts, and engage in their hyper surveillance as a form of control. This can lead to the concealment and suppression of queer identity and self-exclusionary behaviors.
Recommended Citation
Jenkins, Quentin, "“If It Ain’t One Thing, It’s Another”: Black LGBTQ students and their experiences with school discipline and punishment" (2023). Pitzer Senior Theses. 154.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/pitzer_theses/154
Included in
Educational Sociology Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Race and Ethnicity Commons, Social Control, Law, Crime, and Deviance Commons
