Perpetuating the Racial Quarantine: How Teachers Are Positioned to Decide Who Gets Out

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: The Different Outlets of Student Support and Challenges in K–12 Education (Table 39)

Abstract

Students and families who successfully navigate the racial quarantine recognize the importance of relationships with teachers and see this as fundamental to their academic and future success. However, other students view interactions between these students and teachers as a form of favoritism in which teachers pick winners and losers and students feel their potential goes unrecognized in schools, leading to disillusionment with the educational process. Teachers are positioned to legitimize and perpetuate the racial quarantine by determining which students can exit due to their hard work and talent, which implicitly suggests that students who don’t exit lack work ethic or talent. This places blame on the individual for the racial quarantine that has been created and perpetuated by the state.

Authors

• Justin Hill, Johns Hopkins University

• Richard Lofton, Johns Hopkins University