Collaborative Research: School Rights: Law and the Dynamics of Everyday School Life

本研究结合调查和民族志的方法，研究法律对日常学校生活中的社会动态的影响。虽然现在有大量关于影响教育的正式法律和法院判决的文献，但几乎没有社会学研究法律如何影响学生、教师和学校管理人员的日常生活。特别是，我们不知道旨在确保我国青年教育平等的法律是否或如何使最依赖学校提供终身课程机会的社会弱势学生受益。这项研究集中在对学校至关重要的三个法律监管领域--纪律、公民权利(包括性、种族/民族和宗教骚扰)和言论自由--以审查：(1)法律在学校内部和周围的日常实践中是如何重要的；(2)学校行为者(学生、教师和行政人员)如何理解和解释学校中的法律和权利；以及(3)学校行为者何时以及如何调动(或不调动)他们的合法权利。对加州、纽约州和北卡罗来纳州三个不同法律环境的不同州的多所学校的学生、教师和管理人员进行了调查。将在其中六所学校(每个州两所)完成比较民族志研究，这些学校在入学学生的社会背景(即家庭收入和种族)方面有很大不同。民族志数据收集(包括直接观察和深入访谈)侧重于学生、教师和学校管理人员如何体验法律和其他形式的权威。这项研究首次全面分析了法律和权利在学校中的作用。它将通过对法律和权利如何影响学生、教师和行政人员的日常生活和机会的社会学分析，显著扩展目前侧重于正式法律和法院判决的工作。它进一步探讨了为社会上处于有利和不利地位的青年服务的学校在法律实施和影响方面的不同程度。这项工作将极大地促进法律社会学中的权利和动员工作、教育社会学中的不平等和教育机会问题、组织社会学中各组织及其社会法律环境之间的相互作用，以及发展将这些社会科学研究机构联系起来的联系。

This study combines survey and ethnographic methods to study the impact of law on the social dynamics of everyday school life. Although there is now a body of literature on the formal laws and court decisions affecting education, there has been almost no sociological research on how law affects the daily lives of students, teachers, and school administrators. In particular, we do not know whether or how laws designed to ensure equality of education for our nation's youth benefit socially disadvantaged students who rely most heavily on schools for access to life-course opportunities. The study focuses on three arenas of legal regulation that are central to schools -- discipline, civil rights (including sexual, racial/ethnic, and religious harassment), and free speech -- to examine: (1) how law matters in the everyday practices within and around schools; (2) how school actors (students, teachers, and administrators) understand and interpret law and rights in schools; and (3) when and how school actors mobilize (or do not mobilize) their legal rights. Surveys of students, teachers, and administrators are being completed in multiple schools across three different states that have varying legal environments: California, New York, and North Carolina. Comparative ethnographies will be completed in six of these schools (two in each state) that differ substantially in terms of the social backgrounds (i.e., household income and ethnicity) of the students enrolled. Ethnographic data collection (including direct observation and in-depth interviews) focuses on how law and other forms of authority are experienced by students, teachers, and administrators in schools. This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of the role of law and rights in schools. It will significantly extend current work, which focuses on the formal law and court decisions, by providing a sociological analysis of how law and rights affect the everyday lives and opportunities of students, teachers, and administrators. It further explores the extent to which the implementation and impact of law varies across schools that serve socially advantaged and socially disadvantaged youth. This work will contribute substantially to work on rights and mobilization in the sociology of law, to work on inequality and educational opportunity in the sociology of education, to work on the interplay between organizations and their socio-legal environments in organizational sociology, and to the development of a nexus linking these bodies of social science research.