69.025 - "Caste Abolished": Competing Visions of Equal Educational Opportunities in the Long Struggle for Civil Rights

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session brings together four critical histories of minority educational activism dating from the common school movement of the 1840s through the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Our goal is to explore how activists and reformers have fought for educational equality in a public school system ravaged by racial inequality. In the process, we uncover competing visions of what constituted “educational equality” and unexpected forms of educational activism by students, parents, teachers, and scholars. Poised at the intersection of civil rights history and educational policy studies, this session promises to engage audience members in a critical analysis of educational reform initiatives designed to equalize educational opportunities in a deeply unjust social order.

Sub Unit

• Division F - Historical Inquiry in Education

Chair

• Peniel Joseph, The University of Texas - Austin

Papers

• The Ballot or the Book? Radical Black Abolitionists and the Battle for Northern School Integration - Zoe Burkholder, Montclair State University

• Making "Good Neighbors" out of Bad: How Bilingual Education Shaped Educational Opportunities in Postwar Texas - Jonna Perrillo, The University of Texas - El Paso

• Equal Educational Opportunity and Its Critics in the Coleman Report and Black Power Eras - Leah N. Gordon, Amherst College

• Challenging School Segregation in Rurban California: The Case of Soria v. Oxnard School Board - David G. Garcia, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Discussant

• Peniel Joseph, The University of Texas - Austin