Karolyn Tyson–PI. This study brought together prominent researchers on education, law, and organizations to conduct the first large-scale survey and ethnographic analysis of the dynamics of law and everyday school life. The principal investigators were particularly concerned with how social inequality, especially as constituted in social class, structures the impact of law on everyday school life. Focusing on three arenas of legal regulation that are central to schools—discipline, civil rights (including sexual harassment) and free speech—the project examined: 1) how law matters in the everyday practices within and around schools; 2) how school actors (students, teachers, and administrators) understand and interpret law and rights in schools; and 3) when and how school actors mobilize—or do not mobilize—their legal rights. Although the focus was on the operation of law at school, the researchers recognized that law is only one of multiple normative orderings that help to constitute everyday school life. Thus the project examined the interaction of law with other important normative orderings such as those that emerge from bureaucratic imperatives, political/union dynamics, youth subcultures, community and regional conditions, and socio-demographic characteristics. For more information on this research contact Karolyn Tyson at 919-962-5601 or at kdtyson@email.unc.edu.