Decades of curriculum research have uncovered a persistent trend: white people are depicted as dominating the history of the United States, whereas communities of color and their experiences are omitted or misrepresented in social studies textbooks and curriculum standards. The message the resulting curriculum sends to children is that the United…

The Law School at South Carolina State College, a black college located in Orangeburg, South Carolina, was founded in 1947 as a segregated school to keep black students out of the state's all-white law school. However, this small law school produced in its nineteen-year existence a generation of attorneys whose education and achievements outlived…

In an interview, Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria," discusses schools, race, and identity today.

"Kappan"'s editor talks with the distinguished historian Vanessa Siddle Walker about the hidden -- and lost -- tradition of political advocacy by Black educational leaders in the segregated South. To promote equity and excellence for all students, she argues, today's educators will need to recover the sorts of extensive and…

As a Mexican American school desegregation case, historians, legal scholars, and educational researchers have all explored "Mendez v. Westminster's" significance. Each discipline, with its own modes of analysis, has constructed a distinct interpretation of the 1940s California case. However, in focusing on different aspects of…

Between 1889 and 1890, John Wilson and his family were among nearly three thousand African American settlers to enter Oklahoma Territory, where Wilson's two daughters first attended an integrated school. The Wilson family was undoubtedly drawn by the educational and economic opportunities that were present in the fluid space--opportunities that…

The violent police response to uprisings in response to the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor unveiled who America is for our students. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic increased the politicization of schools and exacerbated inequality in schools already segregated by class and race. Throughout the 2020-2021 academic year, students…

This article provides a history of Black southern teacher associations and the civil rights agenda they articulated from Reconstruction through the desegregation of public schools in the 1970s. Black teacher associations demonstrated historic agency by demanding a fundamental right to an education, equal salaries, and the right to work during the…

In this reflective essay, the author addresses fellow educators and their responsibility to students on issues surrounding the ongoing struggle for civil rights. She links the integration of Little Rock, Arkansas schools in 1957 with the 2018 student protest against gun violence following the Parkland, FL mass shooting. As a facilitator of…

Why do children of "migration background"--whose families may have arrived in Germany as many as two generations ago but are still perceived as "foreigners"--often perform significantly worse at school than their native German counterparts? The problem is discrimination. This report gives a face and a voice to the…

Wisconsin--and, in particular, urban Milwaukee--has been at the forefront of a half-century of public education experiments, from desegregation and "school choice" to vouchers and charter schools. "Lessons from the Heartland: A Turbulent Half-Century of Public Education in an Iconic American City" by Barbara J. Miner, former…

School segregation and inequity are deep-rooted realities in U.S. society. Despite historical efforts at integration, too many schools are de facto segregated, and those serving mostly students of color are routinely under-resourced when compared to those servicing mostly white students. Teachers and students can struggle to talk about this…

Black Radicalism believes in the centrality of racism to Western imperialism and a Diasporic commitment to the liberation of Africa; existing in distinction to Black Nationalism, Marxism and Critical Race Theory. A Black radical critique of schooling is presented and the mischaracterizations of Black Radicalism as segregationist and separatist are…

The history of Mexican American school segregation is complex, often misunderstood, and currently unresolved. The literature suggests that Mexican Americans experienced de facto segregation because it was local custom and never sanctioned at the state level in the American Southwest. However, the same literature suggests that Mexican Americans…

The Banneker History Project (BHP) reconstructed the history of the Benjamin Banneker School, which operated as a segregated school for African Americans from 1915 to 1951. It was a project in social justice education with community service as its base. Here, the authors provide an insider perspective of group dynamics among core leaders for the…