Many schools have moved away from formal suspensions and expulsions, but more informal disciplinary practices have emerged in their place. Drawing on two school ethnographies, the authors describe these often-invisible practices and explain how they harm students and their families.
GreenErica L.. 2023. “How Educators Secretly Remove Students with Disabilities From School,”New York Times. This journalistic piece highlights the experiences of students with disabilities who have been informally removed from their schools.
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MathewsonTara García. 2023. “Hidden Expulsions? Schools Kick Students Out but Call It a ‘Transfer,’”Hechinger Report. This journalistic piece provides quantitative data on how often students are forcefully transferred out of their schools.
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GleitRebecca D.. 2025. “Brokers and Boundary Managers: School Expulsions amid the Non-Punitive Turn,”Social Problems 72. This article draws on research in a public high school to explain why some students are informally expelled from school while others are allowed to remain.
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LilySteyerProvencalMayaPearmanFrancisObradovicJelena. 2025. “De Facto Suspensions: Informal Exclusionary Discipline Practices in Public Preschool and Early Elementary Settings,”AERA Open 11. This article draws on research in an early childhood setting to develop a framework for understanding the different types of informal exclusionary discipline and their effects.
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Carla Shalaby. 2017. Troublemakers: Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School. The New Press. This book foregrounds the perspectives of four young children who are seen as “troublemakers” to consider the structural changes that might transform our schools.
