The Pursuit Of Racial And Ethnic Equality In American Public Schools

In 1954 the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education; ten years later, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act. These monumental changes in American law dramatically expanded educational opportunities for racial and ethnic minority children across the country. They also changed the experiences of white children, who have learned in increasingly diverse classrooms. The authors of this commemorative volume include leading scholars in law, education, and public policy, as well as important historical figures. Taken together, the chapters trace the narrative arc of school desegregation in the United States, beginning in California in the 1940s, continuing through Brown v. Board, the Civil Rights Act, and three important Supreme Court decisions about school desegregation and voluntary integration in 1974, 1995, and 2007. The authors also assess the status of racial and ethnic equality in education today and consider the viability of future legal and policy reform in pursuit of the goals of Brown v. Board. This remarkable collection of voices in conversation with one another lays the groundwork for future discussions about the relationship between law and educational equality, and ultimately for the creation of new public policy. A valuable reference for scholars and students alike, this dynamic text is an important contribution to the literature by an outstanding group of authors.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1982.

"Since Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 Americans have viewed school integration as a central tenet of the black civil rights movement. Yet, school integration was not the only-or even always the dominant-civil rights strategy. At times, African Americans also fought for separate, Black-controlled schools dedicated to racial uplift, community empowerment, and self-determination. An African American Dilemma offers a social history of debates over school integration within northern Black communities from the 1840s to the present. This broad geographical and temporal focus reveals that northern Black educational activists vacillated between a preference for either school integration or separation during specific eras. Yet, as there was never a consensus, this study also highlights the chorus of dissent, debate, and counter-narratives that pushed families to consider a fuller range of educational reforms. A sweeping historical analysis that covers the entire history of public education in the North, this study complicates our understanding of school integration by highlighting the diverse perspectives of Black students, parents, teachers, and community leaders all committed to improving public education. It finds that Black school integrationists and separatists have worked together in a dynamic tension that fueled effective strategies for educational reform and the black civil rights movement. This study draws on an enormous range of archival data including the black press, school board records, social science studies, the papers of civil rights activists, and court cases"--

The promise of a free, high-quality public education is supposed to guarantee every child a shot at the American dream. But our widely segregated schools mean that many children of color do not have access to educational opportunities equal to those of their white peers. In Integrations, historian Zoë Burkholder and philosopher Lawrence Blum investigate what this country’s long history of school segregation means for achieving just and equitable educational opportunities in the United States. Integrations focuses on multiple marginalized groups in American schooling: African Americans, Native Americans, Latinxs, and Asian Americans. The authors show that in order to grapple with integration in a meaningful way, we must think of integration in the plural, both in its multiple histories and in the many possible definitions of and courses of action for integration. Ultimately, the authors show, integration cannot guarantee educational equality and justice, but it is an essential component of civic education that prepares students for life in our multiracial democracy.

Intersectionality of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in Teaching and Teacher Education brings together scholarship that employs an intersectionality methodology to actual conditions that affect school-age children, teachers and teacher educators in relation to institutional systems of power and privilege.

"Education plays a central part in the history of racial inequality in America, with people of color long advocating for equal educational rights and opportunities. Though school desegregation initially was a boon for educational equality, schools began to resegregate in the 1980s, and schools are now more segregated than ever. In Integrations, historian Zoë Burkholder and philosopher Lawrence Blum set out to shed needed light on the enduring problem of segregation in American schools. From a historical perspective, the authors analyze how ideas about race influenced the creation and development of American public schools. Importantly, the authors focus on multiple marginalized groups in American schooling: African Americans, Native Americans, Latinxs, and Asian Americans. In the second half of the book, the authors explore what equal education should and could look like. They argue for a conception of "educational goods" (including the development of moral and civic capacities) that should and can be provided to every child through schooling--including integration itself. Ultimately, the authors show that in order to grapple with integration in a meaningful way, we must think of integration in the plural, both in its multiple histories and the many possible meanings of and courses of action for integration"--

"Blending critical race theory, contemporary pragmatism, and the new materialism, this book raises questions about methodology, power, and change. Educational policy analysis needs this book, as do curriculum studies, teacher education, and antiracist work for its focus on how policy is lived by those on the receiving end of structural oppression." Patti Lather, Department of Education Studies, Ohio State university "This provocative analysis offered by Rosiek and Kinslow offers an opportunity for researchers, policy makers, and school leaders and educators to think about the lived experience of Black students in desegregating and resegregating schools. The authors precisely detail the path leading to social and education policies that generated more suffering for Black students and also served to maintain white racial advantage in urban schools and communities." Michael J. Dumas, graduate School of Education and African American Studies Department, University of California, Berkeley "Calling for an ontological reorientation to combat the force of whiteness, Rosiek and Kinslow present agonizing interviews with students subjected to resegregation and institutional racism. They call for readers to inhabit a ‘respectful solidarity’ with the students who analyze their experience with sharp insight, outrage, despair, and resolve." Stacy Alaimo, Professor of English, University of Texas at Arlington Resegregation as Curriculum offers a compelling look at the formation and implementation of school resegregation as contemporary education policy, as well as its impact on the meaning of schooling for students subject to such policies. Working from a ten-year study of a school district undergoing a process of resegregation, Rosiek and Kinslow examine the ways this "new racial segregation" is rationalized and the psychological and sociological effects it has on the children of all races in that community. Drawing on critical race theory, agential realism, and contemporary pragmatist semiotics, the authors expose how these events functioned as a hidden curriculum that has profound repercussions on the students' identity formation, self-worth, conceptions of citizenship, and social hope. This important account of racial stratification of educational opportunity expands our understanding of the negative consequences of racial segregation in schools and serves as a critical resource for academics, educators, and experts who are concerned about the effects of resegregation nationwide. Resegregation as Curriculum was the recipient of the O.L. Davis Book of the year award from the American Association for Teaching and Curriculum (2016).