Reimagining Compliance through the Lens of Equity

“Because I said so.”

Most of us grew up hearing some version of this phrase – at home or at school. And whether we realize it or not, many of the behavioral expectations we hold for children (especially in schools) are inherited from the environments that shaped us.

When we ask children to comply with behavioral demands, we are doing more than managing behavior. We are establishing expectations, defining what is considered acceptable within a space, and communicating the social norms we value, as the adult and figure in a position of power.

At home, this is a natural and necessary part of parenting. Families create boundaries, routines, and expectations that reflect their values and culture. But in schools, the conversation becomes more layered.

Schools serve students from a wide range of racial, cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Yet many school-based behavioral expectations are rooted in white, middle-class norms around communication, movement, emotional expression, respect, independence, and authority. For students whose home or community norms align closely with those expectations, compliance often feels relatively straightforward. But for students from different cultural or social backgrounds, the expectation to “comply” may require them to consistently suppress or modify parts of themselves in order to fit within the dominant culture of the school environment.

In many communities, this dynamic is further compounded by the reality that the teaching workforce remains predominantly white, even in schools serving largely Black, Brown, multilingual, and culturally diverse student populations. This certainly doesn’t mean educators are intentionally causing harm, but it does mean that many school expectations are filtered through the lens of educators whose own cultural experiences differ from those of the students they teach. Without intentional reflection, it becomes easy for teachers’ cultural norms to be treated as “appropriate” or “standard” behavior rather than simply one way of existing.

This does not mean schools should have no behavioral expectations. Safe, predictable learning environments are important to student wellness; students need structure, boundaries, and opportunities to learn the expectations that help communities function well together. But that does not mean that the behavioral expectations should remain as they’ve always been: rooted in white, middle class norms.

True equity asks us to examine which expectations are truly necessary, and why.

Too often, school discipline and behavior systems focus heavily on student conformity without examining whether the expectation itself deserves revision. In many cases, behaviors labeled as “disrespectful,” “defiant,” or “noncompliant” are not inherently unsafe or disruptive. They just fall outside of dominant cultural norms around communication and behavior.

For example:

• Is a student being “disrespectful,” or are they communicating in a more direct style than the teacher expects?
• Is a student “off-task,” or do they regulate attention better through movement?
• Is a student being “defiant,” or are they asking questions in a way that conflicts with traditional power dynamics?

Considering these questions lets us shift the goal. We can stop viewing compliance as the end point, and instead shift to prioritizing understanding.

A helpful starting point is to examine the behavioral expectations we hold in our classrooms and schools. If we’re asking students to meet a particular expectation, we should be able to clearly articulate why that expectation exists.

Reflect:

• Does this behavior interfere with the student’s ability to learn?
• Does it interfere with the learning or safety of others?
• Is the behavior genuinely unsafe?
• Or is this expectation rooted primarily in tradition, personal comfort, or dominant cultural norms?

If the answer is not connected to safety or access to learning, then the expectation may deserve consideration.

Creating equitable learning environments does not mean abandoning structure or allowing harmful behavior. It means building systems that distinguish between behaviors that truly impact safety and learning versus behaviors that simply reflect different ways of existing within a space.

It also means recognizing that expecting students to constantly adapt to dominant cultural norms – without schools doing any adaptation themselves – places a disproportionate burden on students who are already navigating systems that aren’t designed with them in mind.

Equity-centered behavior practices ask schools to expand their understanding of what respectful, engaged student behavior can look like.

This work happens at multiple levels. It can happen through district policies and discipline reform, but it also happens in small daily classroom decisions (these are the ones most of us reading right now can control right away):

• Which behaviors do we correct immediately?
• Which ones do we tolerate from some students but not others?
• How do we define “good behavior”?
• Who gets labeled as “compliant”?
• Who gets labeled as “difficult”?

When schools create spaces that allow for multiple forms of communication, emotional expression, movement, and social interaction, while still maintaining safety and access to rigorous learning, students are more likely to feel both supported and valued for who they are, rather than who they are expected to become.

True equity requires us to stop asking students to fit into existing systems, and instead to reimagine those systems, to better serve every student.