The Racial Reckoning and the Role of Schooling

• In Event: When Educational Realities Meet the Politics of Race

Abstract

Racism remains a pervasive presence in the United States. Despite an ostensible “racial reckoning” in 2020, little has been reconciled with regard to racial inequality. This essay interrogates what role schools might play in the process of racial reckoning. We address school integration, specifying the policies and classroom practices necessary to ensure that all students are integrated into the American promise of opportunity and liberation. Integrated schools seem to provide meaningful opportunities for prejudice reduction, an important prerequisite for racial reconciliation. However, even integrated schools endure social inequalities that reinforce hierarchy. In addition to school integration, we urge pedagogies that explicitly target status hierarchies and elevate questions of social injustice to develop racial consciousness among students in U.S. schools.

Authors

• Suneal H. Kolluri, University of California - Riverside

• Liane I. Hypolite, California State Polytechnic University - Pomona

• Kimberly Young, Culver City High School