The continuum of structural violence: Sustaining exclusion through school closures


Abstract


In this paper we demonstrate the utility of structural violence as an analytical device to make visible intergenerational patterns of exclusion obscured by institutional arrangements initially established to represent and defend community interests. We apply an interdisciplinary critical analysis of the history of economic and social marginalization of neighborhoods to the recent closure of seven neighborhood elementary schools in South Sacramento. By stressing the importance of distribution as an important social arrangement that can cause injury to individuals and populations, we demonstrate how disparate impact, briefly defined as the unequal distribution of resources that affect life chances, has current as well as future effects on households and neighborhoods.  We argue that patterns of structural violence are not only contingent upon historical processes but are also embedded prospectively, or in other words, into the future of neighborhood stability. We find that the structural violence continuum is a phenomenon embedded in the past, present, and future in a manner that constrains the inclusion of certain neighborhoods in the social and economic life of urban settlements.


DOI Code: 10.1285/i24212113v2i2p21

Keywords: school closure, economic divestment, desegregation, structural violence

References


Arriaga v. Sacramento City Unified School District, No. 2:13-cv-01167-KJM-EFB (E.D. Cal. July 22, 2013).

Brummet, Q. (2014). The effect of school closings on student achievement. Journal of Public Economics, 119, 108-124.

Burawoy, M. (2008). Open letter to C. Wright Mills. Antipode, 40(3), 365-375.

Carlson, D., & Lavertu, S. (2015). School closures and student achievement: An analysis of Ohio’s urban district and charter schools. Columbus, OH: Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Chung, C. (2005). Connecting schools to community development. Boston, MA: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC). (1965). Equal educational opportunity in the Sacramento City Unified School District. A report to the Board of Education. Sacramento City Unified School District. The Anna Holden Collection, MSS 543, Box 15, Folder 18. The Wisconsin Historical Society, University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Commons, J. (1931). Institutional economics. The American Economic Review, 21(4), 648-657.

Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43, 1241-1299.

Declaration of Chao Chang in support of plaintiffs’ application for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction (2013). U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California.

Declaration of Jessica Arriaga in support of plaintiffs’ application for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction (2013). U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California.

Declaration of Patricia Gentle in support of plaintiffs’ application for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction (2013). U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California.

Declaration of the representative of the Parent-Teacher Association of Clayton B. Wire Elementary School in support of plaintiffs’ application for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction (2013). U.S. District Court, Eastern District of California.

Deeds, V., & Pattillo, M. (2015). Organizational "failure" and institutional pluralism: A case study of an urban school closure. Urban Education, 50(4), 474-504.

de la Torre, M., & Gwynne, J. (2009). When schools close: Effects on displaced students in Chicago Public Schools. Chicago, IL: Consortium on Chicago School Research. Retrieved from http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/when-schools-close-effects-displaced-students-chicago-public-schools.

de la Torre, M., Gordon, M. F., Moore, P., & Cowhy, J., with Jagesic, S., and Hanh Huynh, M. (2015). School closings in Chicago: Understanding families’ choices and constraints for new school enrollment. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Engberg, J., Gill, B., Zamarro, G., & Zimmer, R. (2012). Closing schools in a shrinking district: Do student outcomes depend on which schools are closed? Journal of Urban Economics, 71(2), 189-203.

Farmer, P. (1996). On suffering and structural Violence: A view from below. Daedalus, 125(1), 261-283.

Farmer, P. (2004). An anthropology of structural violence. Current Anthropology, 45(3), 305-325. doi: 10.1086/382250

Fine, M., & Ruglis, J. (2009). Circuits and consequences of dispossession: The racialized realignment of the public sphere for U.S. youth. Transforming Anthropology, 17(1), 20-33. doi. 10.1111/j.1548-7466.2009.01037.x

Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, peace and peace research. Journal of Peace Research, 6(3), 167–191.

Grogan, P., & Proscio, T. (2000). Comeback cities: A blueprint for urban neighborhood revival. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Harvey, D. (2004). The new imperialism: Accumulation by dispossession. Socialist Register, 40, 63-87.

Hernandez, J. (2009a). Redlining revisited: Mortgage lending patterns in Sacramento 1930-2004. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33(2), 291-313.

Hernandez, J. (2009b). The residual impact of history: Connecting residential segregation, mortgage redlining, and the housing crisis. Commissioned by the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, The Ohio State University.

Hernandez, J. (2012). Race, market constraints and the housing crisis: Critical links to segregation and mortgage redlining in Sacramento. Unpublished Dissertation. UMI 3511975.

Hernandez, J. (2014). Race, market constraints and the housing crisis: A problem of embeddedness. Kalfou: A Journal of Comparative and Relational Ethnic Studies, 1(2), 29-54.

Holden, A. (1969). School desegregation in Sacramento California. Center for Urban Education. Contract CCR 68-39. The Anna Holden Collection, MSS 543, Box 17, Folder 1. The Wisconsin Historical Society, University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Holden, A. (1974). The bus stops here: A study of school desegregation in three cities. New York, NY: Schocken Books.

Jackson, K. T. (1985). Crabgrass frontier: The suburbanization of the U.S. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Martín-Baró, I. (1994). Writings for a liberation psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Opotow, S. (2001). Reconciliation in times of impunity: Challenges for social justice. Social Justice Research, 14(2), 149-170.

Smith, M. P., & Feagin, J. (Eds.) (1995). The bubbling cauldron: Race, ethnicity and the urban crisis. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.

Steggert, S., & Galletta, A. (2013, April). The Press of school accountability: A close look at school closure. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.

Tilly, C. (1998). Durable inequality. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Trouillot, M. (1995). Silencing the past: Power and the production of history. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (2015). Digest of Education Statistics, 2013 (NCES 2015-011), Chapter 2. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=619

Yin, R. (2008). Case study research: Design and methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
کاغذ a4

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.