The Reification of Racial Inequality: A History of Black-White Achievement Gap Research

• In Event: Disrupting the Discourse: The Exacerbation and Misuse of the "Achievement Gap" in Research and Practice

Abstract

Purpose
This paper explores how scholars have defined and measured the notion of the Black-white “achievement gap” from the term’s inception to the present, how these constructions have changed and developed over time, and how racialized notions of whiteness as success have formed the analytical foundation of the Black-White gap mantra and the policies intended to redress it. As this paper reveals, the very scholarship intended to measure racialized gaps have played a pivotal role in reifying notions of racial difference, thus contributing to – rather than disrupting – social inequality.

Framework, Methods, and Evidence
This critical historical scholarship draws on Foucault’s notion of genealogy (1975): the development of an idea, in this case, the “achievement gap,” is a historical creation rather than an objective fact. Race and racism are two sides of the same coin (Fields & Fields, 2014); as scholars sought to measure and objectify racial difference they engaged, unknowingly or not, in a project grounded in racism. Indeed, as CRT scholars have long illuminated, race is a social construct used to categorize and exclude non-whites (Bell, 1980; Harris & Espinoza, 1997; Delgado & Stefanic, 2017; Harper, Patton, & Wooden, 2009). Critical historical scholarship, more than recounting events past, functions as an act of disruption (Author, 2016).

This paper offers a systematic review of the scholarly literature on the Black-white “achievement gap” from the term’s first usage and into the present. The term first appeared in the fall of 1956 (Delgado, 2013; Jones, 2013), and since that time it has appeared in thousands of scholarly articles. Rather than recount each mention, the goal of this paper is to demonstrate how the concept has developed and changed over time and how scholars measured and defined racialized concepts of success and failure over this long history.



Results
We find that racialized notions of whiteness as success and Blackness as failure undergird much of the scholarly literature on the “achievement gap.” Further, we find that in attempts to quantitatively measure success and failure by race scholars have reified, rather than disrupted, historical structural inequalities. Further, we find critical evidence of change over time: the ways scholars have defined gaps and attributed the problems that give rise to them have shifted, reflecting the broader political, social, and economic landscape. Finally, even as we find evidence of a sizable body of scholars who have sought to problematize the notion of the “achievement gap,” much of this work remains uncited in quantitative studies about the Black-white gap.

Scholarly Significance
Scholars have called for the careful interrogation of the “achievement gap” and produced meta-analyses that explores relevant scholarship (Author, 2017; Author, 2013). This study stems from that work and makes two core contributions. First, in adopting a critical historical perspective, this paper explores how the idea developed as a social construct over time. Second, in focusing how scholars have defined and measured the “achievement gap” this study explores how scholars have reified racialized ideas of success and failure, hardening the idea that inequality is natural rather than structural.

Authors

• Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz, University of North Dakota

• Elizabeth Davis, George Mason University

• Khaseem Davis, George Mason University