Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

by Monique W. Morris

For two decades, the nation has been enthralled in a punitive whirlwind that has reshaped how educators respond to students, how administrators understand and interpret adolescent misbehavior, and how institutions respond to the learning needs of children in high-poverty schools. For their part, women and girls experience multiple ways of knowing.15 They gather information not only from what people (adults and peers) tell them but also from experiences, symbols, and metaphors that are woven into the tapestry of their environments.16 Black girls notice the verbal and nonverbal cues that signal what they are supposed to do and be in life, and they are astute enough to realize when the learning environment is producing something other than its stated goal of educating children. What is often being produced creates a climate so hostile that it pushes girls out of school, and so toxic that it is giving us all an attitude.