Bouchet Member Showcase: Tia Clinton

• Tia Clinton is a PhD candidate in Sociology. And, let’s all give a round of applause to Tia. Tia. - Thank you Paul. So I tried to make this presentation as close to three minutes as possible. (laughs) I’m gonna start with screen sharing. Okay. For nearly… Oh, I’m Tia Clinton, a PhD candidate in sociology, and this is my presentation about my dissertation research.

01:01 - For nearly the past four decades, US public schools have relied on zero tolerance policies to manage disciplinary issues. These policies were initiated with the intention that they would make school environment safer, decrease in school incidents of violence and behavioral issues and provide a fair and balanced measure for determining disciplinary consequences. Research has shown however, that in practice, zero tolerance policies have fallen short of their goals. Since implementation, school violence has remained stable over time, while suspension and expulsion rates have increased, particularly for black students. Under zero tolerance, responsibility for handling disciplinary infractions shifted from teachers to other school agents, namely legal authorities.

01:49 - These new policies changed the interaction between the Criminal Justice System and Schools, leading to increased police presence on school grounds. In 2000, at least 41 States had laws requiring that school crimes be referred to law enforcement. The use of zero tolerance policies have ushered in two detrimental phenomena; the Discipline Gap and the School to Prison Pipeline. The Discipline Gap refers to the disproportionate punishment of students of color in school settings. Black students are punished for less serious infractions and for issues, largely subject to interpretation.

02:28 - For example, between 2006 and 2007, black students made up 18% of the school population and 58% of suspensions in Ann Arbor. We can define the School to Prison Pipeline as the policies and practices that are directly and indirectly pushing students of color out of school and on a pathway to prison. The overuse of suspension and expulsion as well as the overreliance on referrals to law enforcement, both contribute to this trend. The emergence of both of these phenomena create a situation where black students have less in class learning time and more interaction with the Criminal Justice System. In light of this, disciplinary alternatives, such as, restorative practices have been introduced as a healthier way to address unwanted behavior in the classroom.

03:20 - Restorative practices works both proactively and reactively to address behavioral conflict. In terms of reactive solutions, at its core, restorative practices purposes itself to repair the harm to people and relationships when conflict arises rather than punishing the offender. Proactively a restorative approach aims to develop school culture, policy, and procedures that reduce the possibilities of such conflict and harm occurring. My dissertation and engages with experiences of two primary stakeholders in the restorative process; for restorative facilitators and students in restorative classrooms. Restorative practices attempts to disrupt the culture established by zero tolerance by shifting the focus from punitive discipline to a community centered approach.

04:10 - However, the effectiveness of restorative practices is contingent on whether or not it becomes embedded into the culture of the school. As a result, study one investigates how restorative practices are being best implemented in the school environment, by engaging in an empirical study on obstacles to application in the Michigan schools. The project focuses on what forms of resistance barriers, bureaucratic, and otherwise; restorative practices facilitators encounter in making restorative practices a part of the school culture. Study two or the second half of my dissertation project, interrogates the potential benefits of a restorative framework outside the realm of discipline. More specifically, I look at whether or not embeddedness in a restorative environment, has implications for students’ sense of support and school bonding, academic motivation, and sense of alienation. Thank you for listening. Okay. - Thank you. Is there anyone you wanna, Tia…

05:22 - Is there anyone you wanna thank or give a shout out to? While you got the stage. - I would just like to thank everyone at Rackham for participating in Bouchet and actually having (chuckles) all of those pictures up of Bouchet scholars because it’s inspirational. So as many of you know, I worked for Rackham for three summers as a graduate student, mentor for the Esrock program. And every time I would walk the halls, I would see these pictures of people that had such inspiring research and were doing the things that I wanted to do, which is try to create studies that have implications for practice outside of the Academy that had impact outside of the Ivory Tower. And so, you know how much that changed my motivation for my own work. So thank you. - [Paul] Thank you Tia. .