Why New York City School Desegregation Requires Systemic Thinking: A Transdisciplinary Conversation

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

School racial segregation is a systemic issue--it is part of the pandemic of systemic racism (Ladson-Billings, 2021) that is older than the United States. Understanding why school segregation exists and how to mitigate it to create new, equitable educational systems involves thinking across disciplines and beyond individual actors. In this symposium, we propose a transdisciplinary conversation on school segregation with a focus on New York City, historically and presently one of the most diverse yet segregated school systems in the country. We propose to think historically, sociologically, and philosophically together to understand how racial segregation has persisted in schools, how it exists now, and how we can respond to it.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Systems Thinking in Education

Chair

• Lianna Wright

Papers

• Competing Visions of Integration as Moral Value: A Historical Perspective on New York City Public School Participants - Leslie Ribovich, Transylvania University

• Building Evidence to Advance Meaningful Integration in New York City - Zitsi Mirakhur, University of Kentucky; Kathryn Hill, Research Alliance for New York City Schools; Jennifer Maldonado; Lianna Wright

• School Segregation as Social-Structural Injustice: Our Political Responsibility for New York City Public Schools - Stephanie Mota Thurston, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Discussant

• Stefan Lallinger, Harvard University