VEST Education and Research Speaker Series: NaLette Brodnax

In this study, I investigate the role of a specific structural factor—carceral ideology, the propensity to solve problems through surveillance, coercion, and confinement—in limiting charter and traditional public schools’ potential to reduce inequality. Research suggests that an accumulation of carceral practices in schools may alter the education, beliefs, and identities of poor and racially minoritized students in ways that inhibit their successful transition to college and the workplace. Carceral ideology in education encompasses ideas and practices that inform pedagogy, culture, and discipline; however, few empirical measures capture these phenomena. To address this gap, I have compiled a large-scale dataset of school handbooks published by schools and provided to students and their families. Handbooks are widely accessible, contain relatively standardized content, and convey concise information about schools’ values, goals, structure, practices, and intentions. With this novel dataset, I constructed a multidimensional measure of carceral ideology using words, phrases, and ideas from the handbooks of a large sample of public schools. Using text analysis, I examine the extent to which schools serving larger minoritized populations are more likely to use carceral language in their handbook communications. I consider the implications of the spread of reforms employing carceral ideology as a pathway to improving achievement given renewed attention to the impacts of incarceration on poor and racially subordinated communities.

Speaker Bio

Dr. Brodnax is an Assistant Professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. She received a joint Ph.D. in Public Policy and Political Science from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. Her research interests include education policy, policy diffusion, and computational social science. She specializes in data science, randomized experiments, cost-benefit analysis, program evaluation, and econometrics.