Carceral logics and education

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, I propose a new conceptual lens for understanding issues of racialised discipline and school exclusion that takes into consideration the foundational carceral logics of the settler colonial state. By bringing together carceral state, settler colonial and critical Indigenous studies literatures I demonstrate how the settler colonial carceral state is driven by racial capitalism and the white possessive and how this impacts schooling. With a focus on Australia, but drawing connections to other British settler colonial contexts, I propose school discipline is connected to raced carceral logics, through relations of: 1) crisis, safety, and security; 2) containment and control; 3) policing and surveillance. I argue that by examining the carceral logics of the state that underpin school discipline and exclusion, it is possible to shift attention onto structural violences that impact racialised young people in schools, rather than expecting such students to be included into a violent system.