Reimagining Schooling in Urban Low-income Communities: Examining Symbolic Violence in Schools

Prior research has established concern for the physical harm youth face that stems from violence present in low-income urban communities. Studies have focused on the accessibility of firearms (Fagan & Wilkinson, 1998),... [ view full abstract ]

Prior research has established concern for the physical harm youth face that stems from violence present in low-income urban communities. Studies have focused on the accessibility of firearms (Fagan & Wilkinson, 1998), bullying (Bender et al., 2010) and how violence exposure drives youth to engage in violent acts (Patchin, et al., 2006). Although this research demonstrates the physical harm youth face, it can also tend to normalize negative labels among youth of color as perpetrators of violence, and it does not clarify that youth of color who engage in illegal activity are a minority (Rios, 2011). Beyond physical harm, other scholars have examined the psychological and emotional harm (Berman, et al., 1996; Singer et al. 1995), protective factors (Ozer, Richards, Kliewer, 2004), youth perceptions of violence (Freudenberg, et al. 1999; Reese, et al. 2001), and how violence exposure can influence academic achievement (Lepore & Kliewer, 2013).

Although research has established that exposure to community violence can negatively impact individual academic achievement (Henrich, et al. 2004) there are no analyses that examine how this issue can shape the culture present at schools or whether students who attend schools in communities with high incidences of violence experience institutional violence inside school.

To account for these gaps in the literature, this paper sets forth the theoretical construct of Symbolic Violence in Schools (SVS). At the surface level, SVS draws from Slavoj Žižek’s framing of violence as subjective and objective; Michael Foucault’s notions of power, discipline and punishment; and, Pierre Bourdieu’s notions of symbolic power and violence. At the root level, SVS draws from interdisciplinary traditions that include: critical race theory in education (Solórzano, 1998), U.S. third world feminism (Sandoval, 1991) in particular, Chicana feminism (Anzaldúa, 1999); and more broadly, decolonial thought (Fanon, 1967) to account for the institutional violence and marginality experienced by low-income students of color, particularly Latina/o. More specifically, SVS refers to an invisible, unspoken, and subtle process that perpetrates violence on students of color. SVS is a mode of thinking that engages in victim blaming, where students of color are blamed for being academically deficient and violent. Moreover, SVS denies the web of systems that inflicts violence in the everyday experiences of students on the margin. I establish this concept to highlight the way students of color experience violence on multiple levels.

By setting forth the theoretical construct of SVS, this paper reimagines the issue of violence in schools as much more than bullying or gangs. This paper interrogates institutional and structural processes that can marginalize and inflict violence on the everyday experience of Latina/o students. Examining violence is complicated given that this topic has been a way to criminalize and label people of color, including youth, as violent and dangerous. It is pressing to engage in this analysis to acknowledge the violence that Latina/o student experience on a daily basis in their neighborhood but also inside school.