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Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between prisons and education in American culture, comparing public schools in California cities to wealthier private schools. The essay critiques the American dream’s notions of social stratification and success of the individual in racialized areas. The first section compares funding disparities between education and prison and argues that while funding is an integral part of the inner-city’s problem, the curriculum itself is ineffective. The second section takes a closer look at differences in the curricula and educational settings of an inner-city school and a private school. It offers ethnic studies in secondary education as a potential solution for re-thinking the way schools are taught in order to allow students to learn about their educational agency. The essay builds upon the genealogy of ethnic studies movements on college campuses in order to show how a similar curriculum in secondary education will offer a different educational discourse for students and allow them to break away from traditional rigid paths of education. The paper then moves to describe the relationship between the school-to- prison pipeline and the prison-industrial complex as a result of inner-city schools’ failure to provide a proper education to students. Law and normalization of surveillance are analyzed to argue that inner-city schools produce docile prisoners.

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