Punished For Being Normal!

A Culturally Relevant Critique of the Deviant Behaviors of Minority Millennials

Abstract

Socially disadvantaged minority students, including African
American students are disproportionately, singled out for disciplinary action
and behavior intervention programs in schools in the United States. The article
draws from triangulated evidence sources, including the researcher‘s
experience as an educational leadership administrator, faculty member
teaching educational leadership, research, and policies, classroom lesson
observations, collaborations and input from practicing teachers and principals,
and literature reviews. Perhaps one of the readily accepted collective
stereotypes is that socially disadvantaged minority students including AfricanAmerican children are more prone to engage in negatively deviant behavior
than any other group of students. This factor is one of the major contributors
to the disproportionately high number of discipline referrals, parentconferences, in school and out of school suspensions, grade retention,
underperformance, alternative school placements, school-to-prison pipeline,
and dropout rates, among the seemingly endless list of other problems
minority students face. To help educational leaders and teachers to better
understand more of the diverse students that they serve, the paper critically
examines some of the commonly misinterpreted behaviors of black K-12
students and offers possible culturally relevant interpretations and rationale
for such otherwise ‗normal‘ behavior. Further, for each of the behaviors
analyzed, the paper suggests alternative avenues for re-examining culturally
‗normal‘ behavior that mainstream public schools routinely label as deviant.
The article argues that leaders and other educators ought to continue to
critically examine this issue, in order to deepen their insights into the cultural
and home backgrounds of their students, and to find novel mechanisms of
labelling, curbing, and appropriately dealing with otherwise normal behavior
that is mischaracterized as deviant. The paper also suggests innovative ways
for educators to help students and families identify potential triggers and
causes for behavior and attitudes that are likely to be construed by mainstream
educators as negative deviance.

https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.16.12.7