Abstract
Statement of Problem
Believed to be in violation of an array of school dress code policies, Black and Brown students are disproportionately confronted with greater amounts of expression policing than their non-Black peers. In academic settings, Black students are required to take additional measures to ensure that they are not disrupting the learning environment at school. These additional measures are embedded in the school’s dress code policy which state the dress code rules, the rationales for those rules, and the sanctions attached to violations of said rules. School dress codes aim to reduce disruption by removing the incitement that is causing the distraction. However, when the distraction is based upon culture, Black students are faced with the undue burden of conforming to culture restrictive dress codes that aim to promote assimilation and the maintenance of Eurocentric beauty standards, or be subject to capricious consequences of alleged violations.
Purpose of the Project
The purpose of this project was to examine the relationship between school dress code policies and the concept of cultural discontinuity specifically for Black students. The researcher examined school dress code policies associated with the viral media occurrences of alleged policy violators to suggest whether student violation/administration enforcement is consistent with policy language. This project was important because there have been many cases in the media whereby Black students were/are being disproportionately targeted and reprimanded in school based on arbitrary and capricious interpretations of dress code policies, including how these policies relate to cultural expression. Harassment via dress code policy reflecting anti-blackness has become more visible within the last decade due to the continuous growth and access to social media. Discriminatory policies are not to be taken lightly as they may impact the students who are affected long after they have left the school grounds. With the prevalence of such incidents, specifically targeting students based on hairstyles, this issue warrants further investigation and exposure.
Project Description
This project is organized into four chapters, appendices, and references as required by the Office of Graduate Studies at California State University, Sacramento. Chapter 1 introduces the topic of dress code policy bias in Pre-K–12 schools nationwide and describes the importance of the project. Chapter 2 examines current and relevant reviews of the literature, providing justification for this project. Chapter 3 defines the methodology of the research used to create this project and provides the reader with an understanding of the researcher’s procedures of data collection and analysis. Chapter 4 presents the results and analysis of the data collected from school dress code policies and media occurrences. The media was pulled into a single stream to create a mini-documentary (project) for visual representation and to strengthen research support. This chapter also includes feedback on the project from education professionals as well as future recommendations on the topic.
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