A Violence of “Best Practice” and Unintended Consequences?: Domestic Violence and the Making of a Disordered Subjectivity

Authors

Tracey Pyscher, Western Washington UniversityFollow

Keywords

domestic violence, cultural resistance, best practice, disordered subjectivities, behavioral frameworks of school discipline

Document Type

Article in Response to Controversy

Abstract

Often, efforts by schools to standardize marginalized children with histories of domestic violence have alarming effects. More recent efforts of standardization typically find a sustained existence in the discourse of “best” practices predicated upon a religious-like adherence to behavioral data driven frameworks. This article traces how children and youth with histories of domestic violence (or HDV youth) navigate and resist deficit laden school subjectivities shaped by special education discourses of medicalization and pathologization. In one case study, I spell out how an elementary school created and maintained an HDV child’s EBD (emotional behavioral disordered) subjectivity with detrimental effects. The article ends with further critique of the social and emotional (behavioral) frameworks populating our schools today and their relationship to the school-to-prison pipeline for children and youth with histories of domestic violence.

Genre/Form

articles

Recommended Citation

Pyscher, Tracey (2016) "A Violence of “Best Practice” and Unintended Consequences?: Domestic Violence and the Making of a Disordered Subjectivity," Journal of Educational Controversy: Vol. 11: No. 1, Article 3.
Available at: https://cedar.wwu.edu/jec/vol11/iss1/3

Subjects - Topical (LCSH)

Family violence--United States; Children--Violence against; School discipline--United States; Adjustment disorders in children

Geographic Coverage

United States

Language

English

Format

application/pdf

Type

Text