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African American Youth Speak Out About the Making of Safe High Schools

The need for safe, secure schools is without question an essential prerequisite for learning and development. There are, however, unintended developmental costs to the way current discipline practices and safe school policies are enacted. There is compelling evidence that the well-intentioned efforts on the part of school officials to maintain a safe educational environment are in conflict with students' age-appropriate strivings for autonomy and culturally rooted forms of self-expression. Students'self-reports suggest that this clash can lead to disenfranchisement of African American urban youths, especially boys, from high school. Through the synthesis of African American youth development theory and the commentary of urban youth, this article illuminates the tension that exists between safe-school policies and African American adolescent development.