Provisional Resistance as Temporary Survival: A Case Study of Baltimore, Urban Education, and Structural Inequities

• In Event: Race and Place in Black Education

Abstract

Inequities within American educational systems negatively impact urban areas, especially where Black students are of the majority. In Baltimore, Maryland specifically, such inequalities are evident in the schools’ lead poisoned water, inoperable heating and cooling systems, and many other problems that the district’s students experience daily. This research found patterns of provisional resistance to the interconnected inequities within Baltimore education. Because there is no one solution to the structural issues, provisional resistance is the way in which marginalized groups resist inequities, given the resources that they do or do not have access to. This form of resistance does not remove agency or power from marginalized groups, but instead refocuses accountability on outside forces, and calls for the dismantling of structures.

Author

• Leah Tonnette Gaines, University of Central Florida