EDUC 220 The School-to-Prison Pipeline

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Schools, despite their role in nurturing the academic growth and development of students, are increasingly becoming sites of criminalization for marginalized children and youth. This raises fundamental questions about the relationship between schools and the carceral state, as well as about the complicity of schools and their officials in the production of prisoners. In this course, students will explore the social, historical and political-economic factors that have contributed to the development, growth and sustenance of the "school-to-prison pipeline." Through an examination of a wide range of texts and sources that sit at the intersection of K-12 schooling, criminal justice, social welfare, and community-based organizing and activism, students will be prepared to critically interrogate educational policies, practices and other structures of schooling that buttress and deconstruct this phenomenon. Sophomore standing required.