These Deadly Times: Reconceptualizing School Violence by Using Critical Race Theory and Disability Studies

Abstract

Most pragmatic responses to school violence seek to assign individual blame and to instill individual responsibility in students. The authors of this article argue that school violence is the result of the structural violence of oppressive social conditions that force students (especially low-income, male African American and Latino students) to feel vulnerable, angry, and resistant to the normative expectations of prison-like school environments. From the vantage point of the intersection of critical race theory and materialist disability studies, the authors examine the impact of social, political, economic, and institutional structures on the social construction of the “deviant” student. They raise questions regarding violent “normalizing” structures and argue for more empowering alternatives.