ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the disconnect between the school staff who were in charge of discipline and the students receiving punishments. In an effort to preserve peace and productiveness, discipline practices following the zero-tolerance model automatically and increasingly pull children out of the classroom and into a school social worker's office for a variety of infractions. Of further significance is the well-documented research that illustrates the overrepresentation of minority and low socioeconomic students receiving disciplinary punishments. Because the cultural environment defines how students interpret and respond to surroundings, any response to student behavior which lacks tolerance and self-awareness cannot be successful. The chapter examines how the intersecting subjectivity of a white social worker and an African-American student reveals the inefficacy of modern discipline models. Despite the discomfort it may induce, it is imperative for white school staff to contemplate how their whiteness manifests consciously and unconsciously within student interactions.
