Beyond Cultural Mismatch Theories: The Role of Antiblackness in School Discipline and Social Control Practices

Black students face hyper-disciplining and high levels of social control when they enter American schools. The cultural mismatch hypothesis attempts to explain this hyper-disciplining by arguing that the mostly White teaching force misinterprets the attitudes and behaviors of Black students, which leads to their hyper-disciplining. Utilizing a longitudinal, deeply iterative, participatory, and critical ethnographic research process, however, this article shows that traditional scholarship around the cultural mismatch hypothesis is insufficient. The analysis indicates that teachers’ misinterpretation of mismatched capital (the traditional cultural mismatch hypothesis) is actually a racialized interpretation of both matched and mismatched capital coming from Black students, and such racialized interpretations are guided by the logic of antiblackness endemic to American institutions. Hence, this research argues for the integration of antiblackness as a theoretical tool to expand upon cultural mismatch explanations and for the creation of educational spaces where Black students are recognized, valued, and treated with dignity and humanization.