My Eyes Were Opened to the Lack of Access to Our Best Schools: Reconceptualizing "Diversity Policy" as a Racial Project

• In Event: 72.020 - Education Expanded: Youth Learning Places and Youthspaces

Abstract

In, “My eyes were opened to the lack of access to our best schools: Re-conceptualizing ‘diversity policy’ as a racial project,” the third panelist examines how minority youth activists fight for access to quality education and racial balance in selective enrollment schools in a southern context with data from a two-year critical ethnography. The top school in the district (read: highest status and resources) contains 16 African American students out of its 644 students, and minority youth activists in the city are concerned about this inequity given the lack of resources across the “regular” public schools.  This youth-identified inequity let them to found an activist group and to develop a plan for action to tackle the lack of diversity in the district’s “best schools.” They reflect upon current board policy related to the lack of diversity, plan events, and write op-ed articles for their respective high school newspapers.
The conceptual framework for the study relies upon Omi and Winant’s (2014) racial formation theory and specifically the notion of racial projects. The study design draws from the critical ethnography perspective in order to understand how youth make sense of policies related to choice, specifically focusing on the lack of diversity in selective enrollment schools in a small southern city. Critical ethnography methodologies (Atkinson, et. al., 2007) were useful when analyzing sensitive issues such as admissions policies and the consequences of a lack of diversity in selective enrollment schools because such methodologies bring attention to power relations and marginalized voices.
The data reveal how youth develop a critical consciousness about racial imbalance in high status schools. I collected three data sources: field notes from monthly school board meetings and youth activist meetings, and semi-structured interviews with youth (20). To analyze the data, I drew from the research literature on minority youth activism in the face of neoliberal, unequal educational policy. I engaged in both open and analytic coding with the conceptual orientation to guide analysis (Saldaña, 2013). From the data I learned about youth reflections on the lack of diversity in selective enrollment schools and the development of critical consciousness about racial imbalance and persistent segregation in the district. As a critical ethnographer, I went into this study knowing that I wanted to uncover marginalized voices on sensitive issues of inequality and to specifically “look for race” (Staiger, 2006). I engaged in two phases of coding that will be explained. Importantly, phase two of coding applied the notion of racial projects from the conceptual framework. I report the “symbolic” meanings of diversity for youth. Using the notion of racial projects revealed the symbolic meaning behind colorblind terms like “diversity,” to show how such terms sustain institutional racism and inequity. Implications are discussed to show how re-conceptualizing policy as a racial formation can bring institutional racist practices into view in hopes of transforming district policies to better offer access to high quality schools for all students.

Author

• Sophia Rodriguez, University of North Carolina - Greensboro