Resisting Educational Inequality

Resisting Educational Inequality examines poverty, social exclusion and vulnerability in educational contexts at a time of rising inequality and when policy research suggests that such issues are being ignored or distorted within neoliberal logics. In this volume, leading scholars from Australia and across the UK examine these issues through three main focus areas: Mapping the damage: what are our explanations for the persistent nature of educational inequality? Resources for hope: what do we know about how educational engagement and success can be improved in schools serving vulnerable communities? Sustaining hope: how might we reframe research, policy and practice in the future? Using a range of theories and methodologies, including empirical and theory-building work as well as policy critique, this book opens innovative areas of thinking about the social issues surrounding educational practice and policy. By exploring different explanations and approaches to school change and considering how research, policy and practice might be reframed, this book moves systematically and insightfully through damage towards hope. In combining pedagogy, policy and experience, Resisting Educational Inequality will be a valuable resource for all researchers and students, policymakers and education practitioners.

The issue of educational opportunity has long been of public concern and a major focus for eduational research. This work relates to various levels of the educational system and to different categories of student.

This volume highlights issues of power, inequality, and resistance for Asian, African American, and Latino/a students in distinct U.S. and international contexts. Through a collection of case studies it links universal issues relating to inequality in education, such as Asian, Latino, and African American males in the inner-city neighborhoods, Latina teachers and single mothers in California, undocumented youth from Mexico and El Salvador, immigrant Morrocan youth in Spain, and immigrant Afro-Caribbean and Indian teenagers in New York and in London. The volume explores the processes that keep students thriving academically and socially, and outlines the patterns that exist among individuals—students, teachers, parents—to resist the hegemony of the dominant class and school failure. With emphasis on racial formation theory, this volume fundamentally argues that education, despite inequality, remains the best hope of achieving the American dream.

The ethnographic studies in this volume explore issues and approaches in the study of education and inequality. The authors identify that access to status, knowledge and power in society and in particular, in schools varies by virtue of individuals' social and cultural identities. The process of changing this system and resistance to change are examined in this collection, in an attempt to find a course of action for those who are victims of inequality or who seek to combat inequality.

In Cracks in the Schoolyard, Conchas challenges deficit models of schooling and turns school failure on its head. Going beyond presenting critical case studies of social inequality and education, this book features achievement cases that depict Latinos as active actors—not hopeless victims—in the quest for social and economic mobility. Chapters examine the ways in which college students, high school youth, English language learners, immigrant Latino parents, queer homeless youth, the children of Mexican undocumented immigrants, and undocumented immigrant youth all work in local settings to improve their quality of life and advocate for their families and communities. Taken together, these counternarratives will help educators and policymakers fill the cracks in the schoolyard that often create disparity and failure for youth and young adults. Contributors: Nancy Acevedo-Gil, Alejandra S. Albarran, Edelina M. Burciaga, Leo R. Chavez, Gilberto Q. Conchas, Isiaah Crawford, Cindy Cruz, Briana M. Hinga, Eduardo Mosqueda, Leticia Oseguera, Louie F. Rodriguez, Kip Téllez, and Irene I. Vega “Conchas’ provocative and compelling case studies in education position him once again as a leading voice in challenging commonsense notions of Latino school failure.” —Kris D. Gutiérrez, professor of Education, University of California, Berkeley “Conchas has provided readers with an important gift: authentic stories, authentic struggles, authentic strategies, and authentic success. This work debunks the deficit discourse around Latina/o education with a complex analysis of how race, community strengths, and identity become assets for educational excellence. The cases presented are rich, powerful, compelling and inspiring. Essential reading for social justice advocates!” —Tyrone Howard, professor of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles and author of Why Race and Culture in Matters in Schools “In this groundbreaking volume Conchas ushers in a new paradigm for understanding Latina/o student achievement. The authors in this volume collaboratively and compellingly demonstrate the importance of understanding Latina/o educational achievement by analyzing assets and agency in the lives of youths and their families. This volume provides educators, policymakers, and scholars the critical hope and pragmatic agenda for developing a more just educational system—the authors cogently teach us to identify and understand the plethora of contributions that Latina/o students make to our educational system on a day-to-day basis.” —Victor M. Rios, professor of Sociology and author of Punished

The issue of educational opportunity has long been of public concern and a major focus for eduational research. As a result, there is now a substantial body of research findings in this field, both quantitative and qualitative.; This work relates to various levels of the educational system and to different categories of student, but particularly social class, gender, ethnicity and race. The central trend has been to find persisting inequalities despite reform at system, institutional and classroom levels. Furthermore, the educational system is frequently portrayed as playing a key role in reproducing wider social and economic inequalities.; This book examines the status of educational inequality as a social problem, explores the conceptual issues surrounding it, assesses a representative sample of recent research, and seeks to clarify the relevant methodological ground rules, thereby laying the basis for future research in the field.

Neoliberalism is having a detrimental impact on wider social and ethical goals in the field of education. Using an international range of contexts, this book provides practical examples that demonstrate how neoliberalism can be challenged and changed at the local, national and transnational level.

In her research R. Nazlı Somel focuses on the topic of educational inequality, both from a theoretical perspective and through an empirical analysis. After a review of prominent approaches to educational inequality and their criticism, she offers a novel strategy to study the issue based on Relational Sociology and using the relational approaches of Charles Tilly and Pierre Bourdieu. Three relational characteristics of educational inequality are identified that are its relativity, cumulativeness, and being an organized practice. The author then applies this relational perspective to an in-depth study on an Istanbul primary school, analyses students, teachers and school organization in relation to each other and to Turkish education system and society.