UC Irvine

This doctoral dissertation engages with the following sociological themes and theories: educational inequality; the criminalization of youth in ways that advance the interests of dominant institutions; the ways in which immigrants’ ethnic capital and cultural frames of success affect assimilation processes, trajectories, and mainstream institutions. I draw on over two years of fieldwork at two dissimilar high schools in “Valley View,” an affluent, ethnoracial diverse Southern California suburb with highly-rated public schools. “Pinnacle High School” is a meticulously maintained, nationally-ranked comprehensive high school, while neighboring “Crossroads High School” is a stigmatized continuation school where Black and Latino youth are grossly overrepresented among the student body. Students are sent to Crossroads when they have fallen behind in their coursework such that they are no longer on normative time to graduate. While researchers have linked the continued segregation of schools to the racial and class segregation of neighborhoods, I unveil institutional practices that result in school segregation in an affluent, racially diverse Southern California suburb independent of the forces of residential segregation. Pinnacle High School embraces a collective interpretation of academic achievement – what I refer to as an institutional success frame – in which advanced classes, top grades and test scores, and admission to a prestigious university are routine. Students who fall short of these standards are marginalized, and those who struggle academically are sent to nearby Crossroads High School. At Crossroads, students encounter a metal perimeter fence, spotlight towers, constant surveillance by local law enforcement, classrooms housed in trailers, and a curriculum that curtails their post-secondary enrollment options. I refer to this separate and unequal schooling as academic segregation – school segregation predicated on academic standing. Correlatively, the overtly carceral treatment of students at Crossroads represents a criminalization of mediocrity.