School Desegregation in a Rural Southeastern District: A Narrative Study

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Black Educational Journeys: From Historical Strivings to Integration Narratives (Table 21)

Abstract

This narrative study investigated a career educator who grew up attending a one-room schoolhouse in the foothills of rural Appalachia in a southeastern state in the US during the 1950s era of busing and desegregation. Through her retrospective perspective, the research presents her story as to what happened when one small, isolated one-room schoolhouse closed to usher in a large, standardized, comprehensive K-12 school district throughout the school consolidation era. The findings show how issues of stereotyping and branding, race, and poverty impacted student achievement of high school students.

Keywords: desegregation, one-room schoolhouse, busing, school consolidation era

Author

• Frances C. Furlong, College of William & Mary