“Why Are They Doing This to Us?” The Meaning of the New Racial Segregation in Schools

• In Event: Separate or Equal: Race, Space, and Nation in Contemporary American Schools

Abstract

This paper reports on a five year field study of the rapid resegregation of a U.S. school district once a 30 year federal desegregation order was lifted. It focuses specifically on the way community members interpreted the meaning resegregation and how it functioned as a curriculum for students in the schools. The paper contributes to the growing body of research on the new racial segregation in U.S. K-12 schools. In the spirit of Kenneth and Mamie Clark’s research, it will provide evidence that the “new” racial segregation in our schools is meaningful to children and that it is communicating something damaging to them. However, instead of using psychological research methods, this study takes a critical ethnographic approach to documenting that meaning.

Authors

• Jerry L. Rosiek, University of Oregon

• Kathleen M. Kinslow, The University of Alabama