History of Inequalities in American Education

History of Inequalities in American Education

Author: Marta ZapaƂa-Kraj

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2015-01-29

Total Pages: 77

ISBN-13: 3656886547

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Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2015 in the subject Pedagogy - History of Pedagogy, grade: 5.0, , language: English, abstract: Education affects every part of our lives. For the majority of people education level determines income level, place in the class system, and even health. Without quality education in ones youth, he or she is quickly at a severe disadvantage then a peer who receives one. In doing this research the author of this thesis has found the most important obstacles in the history of American education. in order to present what factors led to such a situation in American schools, the author decided to divide the paper in three following parts - each discussing different aspect of inequalities found in educational history. The problems of education inequality are deeply rooted throughout American history. In the South segregation was upheld in the Supreme Court in the Plessy vs Ferguson Case in 1896 which mandated that schools be segregated into black and white. What is more, the educational inequalities reach out even deeper - not only did race and skin-color made difference in accesss to knowledge. The sex played also a vital role in it. The history of American education is written down by the numerous minor cases of women who were forbidden to learn, just because they were not born men.


Despite the Best Intentions

Despite the Best Intentions

Author: Amanda E. Lewis

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2015-08-04

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0190250879

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On the surface, Riverview High School looks like the post-racial ideal. Serving an enviably affluent, diverse, and liberal district, the school is well-funded, its teachers are well-trained, and many of its students are high achieving. Yet Riverview has not escaped the same unrelenting question that plagues schools throughout America: why is it that even when all of the circumstances seem right, black and Latino students continue to lag behind their peers? Through five years' worth of interviews and data-gathering at Riverview, John Diamond and Amanda Lewis have created a rich and disturbing portrait of the achievement gap that persists more than fifty years after the formal dismantling of segregation. As students progress from elementary school to middle school to high school, their level of academic achievement increasingly tracks along racial lines, with white and Asian students maintaining higher GPAs and standardized testing scores, taking more advanced classes, and attaining better college admission results than their black and Latino counterparts. Most research to date has focused on the role of poverty, family stability, and other external influences in explaining poor performance at school, especially in urban contexts. Diamond and Lewis instead situate their research in a suburban school, and look at what factors within the school itself could be causing the disparity. Most crucially, they challenge many common explanations of the 'racial achievement gap,' exploring what race actually means in this situation, and why it matters. An in-depth study with far-reaching consequences, Despite the Best Intentions revolutionizes our understanding of both the knotty problem of academic disparities and the larger question of the color line in American society.


Because of Race

Because of Race

Author: Mica Pollock

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780691125350

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In Because of Race, Mica Pollock tackles a long-standing and fraught debate over racial inequalities in America's schools. Which denials of opportunity experienced by students of color should be remedied? Pollock exposes raw, real-time arguments over what inequalities of opportunity based on race in our schools look like today--and what, if anything, various Americans should do about it. Pollock encountered these debates while working at the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights in 1999-2001. For more than two years, she listened to hundreds of parents, advocates, educators, and federal employees talk about the educational treatment of children and youth in specific schools and districts. People debated how children were spoken to, disciplined, and ignored in both segregated and desegregated districts, and how children were afforded or denied basic resources and opportunities to learn. Pollock discusses four rebuttals that greeted demands for everyday justice for students of color inside schools and districts. She explores how debates over daily opportunity provision exposed conflicting analyses of opportunity denial and harm worth remedying. Because of Race lays bare our habits of argument and offers concrete suggestions for arguing more successfully toward equal opportunity.


Race in the Schools

Race in the Schools

Author: Judith R. Blau

Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9781588263339

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Judith Blau's disturbing study presents strong evidence that our schools, assumed by many to be an equalizing force in U.S. society, are in fact racialized settings that reproduce white advantage - to the detriment of all students. Drawing on rich, longitudinal databases, Blau explores the values, activities, and educational experiences of a sample of young people born a decade or so after the 1964 Civil Rights Act was signed into law. She focuses on topics that are both important in students' lives and central in schooling: attitudes toward integrity and cheating, getting into trouble, interracial relations, learning, and going to college. Her remarkable findings challenge many assumptions long held by researchers and policymakers. Race in the Schools, combining an accessible style, sophisticated methodology, and clear policy relevance, is a seminal study of the pervasive consequences of race in the U.S. education system.