Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline

by Mark R. Warren

Overview

The story of how Black and Brown parents, students and members of low-income communities of color organized to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline in their local schools and built a movement that spread across the country.

In Willful Defiance, Mark R. Warren documents how Black and Brown parents, students, and low-income communities of color organized to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline in their local schools and built an intersectional movement that spread across the country. Examining organizing processes in Mississippi, Los Angeles, Chicago, and other localities, he shows how relatively small groups of community members built the power to win policy changes to reduce suspensions and expulsions by combining deep local organizing with resources from the national movement. As a result, over the course of twenty years, the movement to combat the school-to-prison pipeline resulted in falling suspension rates across the country and began to make gains in reducing police presence in schools, especially in places where there have been sustained organizing and advocacy efforts.

In documenting the struggle organizers waged to build national alliances led by community groups and people most impacted by injustice rather than Washington-based professional advocates, Warren offers a new model for movements that operate simultaneously at local, state and national levels, while primarily oriented to support and spread local organizing. In doing so, he argues for the need to rethink national social justice movements as interconnected local struggles whose victories are lifted and spread, In the end, the book highlights lessons from the school-to-prison pipeline movement for organizers, educators, policymakers and a broader public seeking to transform deep-seated and systemic racism in public schools and the broader society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197611517
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/09/2021
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.15(w) x 9.28(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

Mark R. Warren is Professor of Public Policy and Public Affairs at the University of Massachusetts Boston. A sociologist and community-engaged scholar, he studies and works with community, parent and youth organizing groups seeking to promote equity and justice in education, community development and American democratic life. Warren is the author of five books, including Lift Us Up, Don't Push Us Out! Voices from the Front Lines of the Educational Justice Movement (2018). Warren has co-founded several networks promoting activist scholarship, community organizing and movement-building, including the Peoples Think Tank on educational justice, the Urban Research Based Action Network, and the Special Interest Group on Community and Youth Organizing in the American Educational Research Association. He has won a number of prestigious awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, and is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Confronting the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Journeys to Racial Justice Organizing
Chapter One: The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Criminalization as Racial Domination and Control
Chapter Two: "Nationalizing local struggles:" Community Organizing and Social Justice Movements
Chapter Three: "There is no national without the local": Building a National Movement Grounded in Local Organizing
Chapter Four: The Prevention of Schoolhouse to Jailhouse: Intergenerational Community Organizing in Mississippi
Chapter Five: Challenging Criminalization in Los Angeles: Building a Broad and Deep Movement to End the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Chapter Six: From the Local to the State: Youth-led Organizing in Chicago
Chapter Seven: The Movement Spreads: Organizing in Small Cities, Suburbs and the South
Chapter Eight: The Movement Expands: Police-Free Schools, Black Girls Matter and Restorative Justice
Conclusion: Organizing and Movement-Building for Racial and Educational justice
Appendix: Community Engaged Research Methods
Acknowledgements
References
Notes

Editorial Reviews

"With its insights into the importance of deep organizing and into leadership by the most directly impacted, Willful Defiance is an important history and analysis of a movement that has a profound effect on US schooling, with much to offer both activists and scholars of community organizing and social movements" — Harvard Education Review

"...is an important contribution to the expanding literature on the school—to—prison pipeline." — Montel Gordon, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK, Ethinic and Racial Studies

"Inspiring! Warren weaves the facts about the harms caused by the school-to-prison pipeline, historical accounts, and first-person recollections of community organizers into a remarkable story of hope and resistance. Sixty years after the civil rights movement, it is remarkable and discouraging that Black and Brown communities are once again forced to defend their right to vote, and to fight for their children's right to learn about race and racism in our schools. Yet the narrative of Willful Defiance shows that, in the face of long odds, parents and students represent a forceful voice for change. The local efforts and national networks they created have demonstrated that, through persistence and dogged organizing, it is possible to bring an end to the harmful effects of exclusionary discipline and school policing, and to create schools in which Black and Brown students can thrive." — Russell J. Skiba, Professor Emeritus, Indiana University

"Willful Defiance provides important ammunition to the growing movement to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. Through a multi-year study of grassroots organizing efforts, Mark Warren shows us how communities are taking control of their schools by challenging unjust school discipline policies and practices, and reclaiming the lives of children who have been treated unfairly. Too often, educators who should be providing guidance and support, rely upon punitive school discipline to punish the neediest children. We can and must do a better job at addressing the needs of vulnerable youth. This book shows us how to do so." — Pedro A. Noguera, Dean, University of Southern California's Rossier School of Education

"Willful Defiance tells the story of power, the power of the people who shine a light on oppression before most are aware of it; then organize to dismantle that oppression. Racism is the foundation of these policies and parents and young people are standing up against it. This book gives us the inspiration to join the movement to stop the school-to-prison pipeline. Grassroots community organizing can change our world. Si Se puede!" — Dolores Huerta, President, Dolores Huerta Foundation, and cofounder, United Farm Workers

"Willful Defiance is the first and only book on the grassroots movement to end racist school discipline policy and policing in our public schools. It shows what can be done when parents and students organize to demand an end to the criminalization of youth of color. Richly detailed and powerfully written, it is a must read for all those who care about the fight for freedom in Black and Brown communities." — Marc Lamont Hill, Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities, and Solutions, Temple University

"Few educators and researchers have investigated complex issues in quite the way that Mark Warren has. In Willful Defiance, Warren returns to sites of struggle in which Black and Brown parents generate powerful local and national movements for educational justice. His loving critique of the challenges we face makes for essential reading for educators, policymakers, parents, and grassroots organizers interested in successfully taking up intersectional frameworks." — Kimberlé Crenshaw, Professor of Law and Executive Director of the African American Policy Forum

"Mark Warren approaches the ever-evolving movement to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline with the expertise and care our people deserve. This book tells a more complete story about the power of organized defiance to transform educational systems that fail to offer what our communities deserve. Warren beautifully illustrates how young people, parents and communities are redefining what is possible by showing us how to create compassionate and holistic approaches to learning and building power." — Charlene Carruthers, founding national director of BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100)

"Willful Defiance eloquently and powerfully demonstrates what can be accomplished when the people who experience the oppressive systems, structures and policies in our society are the ones that define and determine the solutions that create racially equitable policies and practices in schools. This book provides a rich, historical overview of how families and students of color organized and engaged in, in the words of John Lewis "good trouble, necessary trouble" to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline, not only in their local communities, but across the country. Willful Defiance is a timely reminder of what justice actually looks like in practice." — Karen L. Mapp, Senior Lecturer, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"This book offers detailed lessons for community activists, social justice researchers, and college students...Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals." — Choice

"Willful Defiance provides a rich history of a critical racial and educational justice movement advanced through individual efforts and intentional collaborations." — Nora Gross, American Journal of Sociology

From the Publisher