Breaking Barriers: Addressing the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Black Queer Youth and the Role of Educators.

This thesis evaluates an in depth analysis of the School to Prison Pipeline (STPP) and its a disproportionate impact for Black Queer Youth. Utilizing Kimberele Crenshaw’s intersectionality theory, this research explores the way educational systems replicate structures of oppression and the product of overlapping systems of racism, homophobia, and transphobia that criminalize marginalized students. The School to Prison Pipeline operates through mechanisms such as zero tolerance policies, exclusionary discipline, and surveillance-based schooling, which push students, especially Black LGBTQ students, out of schools and into the criminal justice systems. In fact, Black students were three and a half times more likely to be suspended or expelled in comparison to their white peers. This overrepresentation results in higher dropout rates among youths of color, as well as demonstrated the racialized approach to zero-tolerance policies that force them into the prison industrial complex. For LGBTQ youth, particularly Black and Brown queer students, the risks of being pushed into the School to Prison Pipeline are compounded by gendered and sexualized expectations that mark their identities as deviant or disruptive. Through my experiences as a student and educator, I reflect on my early childhood education and student teaching placements that helped shape my awareness of social injustice. Through these experiences, I seek to incorporate them in my practice as an educator to interrupt the STPP in my own classroom. The narrative of Isaac, a Black, gender non-conforming student in my classroom, illustrates the power of affirming pedagogy, culturally relevant curriculum, and student-centered teaching. The case study of Zora from the novel Troublemakers (Shalaby, 2017) is examined to show how schools perpetuate the School to Prison Pipeline towards their students of color due to educators racial biases. By spotlighting the intersections of race, gender identity, and sexuality within the School to Prison Pipeline, this thesis calls for a radical reimagining of schooling. Teachers must engage in critical self-reflection, curriculum adaptations, and activism within their institutions. Teaching is inherently political, and through intentional, pro-Black, queer-affirming practices, schools can begin to dismantle the School to Prison Pipeline and foster safes spaces where all students can grow, learn, and thrive.