There is much research on race and schooling focused on punitive discipline, but little attention is paid to how teachers and administrators use minor policies to coerce students to “willingly” adopt hegemonic ideologies, particularly the ones that correspond to Whiteness. In this work, Whiteness is conceptualized as a social concept in which forms of knowledge, skills, and behavioral traits are cultivated for the sake of maintaining White supremacy as the dominant ideology in the social organization of structures and people. My work explores how teachers and administrators use school dress code policies, specifically the policies regarding hairstyles, to indoctrinate Black students into Whiteness. I argue that schools are sites intended to racialize Black students into White society. I argue that dress codes that regulate hairstyles are a form of White hegemony. I ground my work in Antonio Gramsci and John Gaventa’s theoretical views of hegemony to conceptualize how administrators and teachers invoke forms of domination and coercion to force Black students to transform their appearance for the sake of upholding White ideals of professionalism. I offer a critical race conceptual model that articulates how power is enacted upon Black students to further a White aesthetic. The conceptual model highlights how teachers and administrators assign racialized social meanings to different hairstyles and unconsciously or consciously reinforce the idea that Black hairstyles hinder Black students’ performance in the classroom and reduce their future employment opportunities. Contemporary examples of Black students’ experiences in school are cases that validate this model. I argue that dress code policies about hair that incur minor infractions are destructive to Black students’ sense of identity and reinforce Whiteness as the normative frame of civil society.

有很多关于种族和学校教育的研究都集中在惩罚性纪律上，但很少关注教师和管理人员如何使用小政策来强迫学生“自愿”采用霸权意识形态，尤其是那些与白人相对应的意识形态。在这项工作中，白人被概念化为一种社会概念，其中培养知识、技能和行为特征的形式，以维持白人至上主义作为结构和人的社会组织中的主导意识形态。我的工作探讨了教师和管理人员如何使用学校着装规定政策，特别是关于发型的政策，将黑人学生灌输给白人。我认为学校是旨在将黑人学生种族化为白人社会的场所。我认为规范发型的着装规范是白人霸权的一种形式。我的工作以安东尼奥·葛兰西和约翰·加文塔的霸权理论观点为基础，以概念化管理者和教师如何利用统治和胁迫的形式来迫使黑人学生为了维护白人的专业理想而改变他们的外表。我提供了一个批判性种族概念模型，该模型阐明了权力是如何施加在黑人学生身上以促进白人美学的。该概念模型突出了教师和管理人员如何将种族化的社会意义赋予不同的发型，并无意识或有意识地强化黑人发型阻碍黑人学生在课堂上的表现并减少他们未来就业机会的观念。黑人学生在学校经历的当代例子就是验证这种模式的案例。我认为，轻微违规的头发着装政策会破坏黑人学生的认同感，并强化白人作为公民社会的规范框架。