Between the Poor People’s Campaign, Cognitive Development and Education: School, Society & #Representation

• In Event: Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Topic -Diversity, Equity & Social Justice

Abstract

Much has been written on the Achievement Gap and/or Educational Debt (Ladson-Billings, 2007) between racially Black and White students in the U.S. This paper seeks to conceptualize another understanding of its persistence by bringing together a Civil Rights initiative, the Poor Peoples Campaign, alongside the U.S. Constitution, related governmental promises, Educational Purpose Theories and Developmental Psychology; to argue that the lack in culturally diverse representation in educational and/or curricular tools feeds this gap in educational success between the two groups. Further, that a lack in diverse representation is inconsistent with present-day American guarantees to its citizenry and its right to democratic participation. Frameworks from the Poor Peoples Campaign (Barber, 2019; Laurent, 2018 / “PPC”) are employed to conceptualize another understanding of the persistent educational Achievement Gap and/or Educational Debt (“AG/ED”). The PPC asserts that those who are marginalized (i.e., Black and Brown persons, those in Poverty, individuals with disabilities, etc.) are best suited to scaffold what is needed to produce the policy changes and related Social Justice movements necessary for their communities. Furthermore, the Politics of Rejection (Barber, 2019), explains the policies, choices and populations policy-and-lawmakers do not protect are determined by virtue of what is accounted for and protected. In addition, it is not only who performs these actions (e.g., politicians) but the ideologies underpinning them which situates the rejection as political. As well as the Principle of Equal Life Chances (Laurent, 2018); wherein, demographic information alone accurately predicts a life’s outcome. In a Bronfenbrenner-model this implies severe ecological inequalities that negatively affects the expression of capabilities. When applied to AG/ED, it is asserted that by what is placed, held, and allowed into classrooms, i.e., curricula and curricular tools, also designates what is not. For example, when E.D. Hirsch crafts arguments, lists, dictionaries, and encyclopedias of what all children in American schools need to know/must learn, he is at the same time dictating what they do not need to learn/know. The Common Core functions similarly and is governmentally endorsed, when it denotes certain text, as ‘exemplar.’ Hence, those with power and/or authority are constructing what is educational in non-exhaustive manners which thereby deny the wholeness of American students and the communities which first nurture and concurrently educate them. It is asserted that, educational decision-makers and the like, should only deduce what skills—not knowledge—they expect current and future generations to need and scaffold educational expectations and curricula around building those skills. Knowledge is a layer on top of a skill; once one has the ability to read, one can read any readable material and gain the knowledge. Complex and/or challenging text are not the property of any one author or culture and so countless text and experiences could be used in the building of this skill. Therefore, educational design should seek best-practices to be additive. As has been discussed in prior research, the hierarchical positioning of Western-Eurocentric and/or White Americentric knowledge in curricular tools is a likely promoter of the AG/ED.

Author

• Laronnda Thompson, University of Pennsylvania
  Presenting Author