Race, Research, and Urban Education

• In Event: Policy and Reform Issues in Urban Education

Abstract

This paper uses a Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework to look at the way legal efforts have worked to both ensure and deny educational opportunities for students of color.
While the author necessarily starts with the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, her intent is to focus on contemporary legal moves in education (e.g., state propositions, Supreme Court cases) as well as policy reforms that ostensibly propose to improve urban education but end up reinscribing inequality. (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954).

In this paper the author discusses the way schooling in the United States continues to uphold and reinforce racial inequality and how that inequality contributes to the achievement disparities extant in the nation’s schools (Orfield & Yun, 1999; Frankenberg & Lee, 2002). She begins with a brief explanation of Critical Race Theory and its use in understanding inequality (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001; Crenshaw, 2011).

The author offers an examination of some of the legal cases, laws, and policies regarding education (Carr, 2013); Ladson-Billings, 2004a). She concludes with prospects for resolving “the problem we all live with” (Ladson-Billings, 2009; Martin Haberman, 1995).

References

Brown v. Board of Education, 347 US 483 (1954)

Carr, S. (2013). Hope against hope: Three schools, one city, and the struggle to educate America’s children. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press.

Crenshaw, K. (2011). Twenty years of Critical Race Theory: Looking back to move forward. Connecticut Law Review, 43(5), 1253–1352.

Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical race theory: An introduction. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Frankenberg, E., & Lee, C. (2002). Race in American public schools: Rapidly resegregating school districts. Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University.

Haberman, M. (1995). Star teachers of children in poverty. Indianapolis, IN: Kappa Delta Pi.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2004a). Differing conceptions of citizenship. In N. Noddings (Ed.), Educating citizens for global awareness (pp. 69–80). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2009). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.

Orfield, G., & Yun, J. (1999). Resegregation in American schools. Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University.

Author

• Gloria J. Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin - Madison