The role of punitive discipline in trajectories of in(exclusion): An ethnographic study in schools with high punitive practices

Abstract

Despite the high coverage rates of the school system and the progress made in terms of inclusion policies, segregationist practices that exclude differences still persist in Chile. These practices of exclusionary discipline and academic ordering organize school spaces free of disruption and indiscipline, pushing aside those students who do not conform to the socially constructed norm. This exercise has important consequences for the trajectories constructed for those students identified as the focus of disruption and indiscipline. Based on an ethnographic study of devices, we reconstructed the trajectories of two students from two schools with high levels of punitive exclusionary discipline, who had been identified by different school agents as one of the focus of the school's school violence problems. The results show that the school erected a discourse of salvation in the face of trajectories at risk of exclusion, which configure a subjective borderline experience that accepts them, but at the same time rejects their presence in schools. We identify the relevance of intermediate figures -teachers and school psychologists- in the construction of a narrative of salvation. We discuss the implications of trajectories of in-exclusion as an effect of punitive discipline.