Modern public education is rooted in capitalist interests of turn-of-the-century industrialists and their institutions. The Americanization of cheap immigrant labor and the formation of a passive industrial workforce were that era's dominant sociological concerns. More recently, residential desegregation efforts are hampered by real estate…

Two systems of metaphors (laissez-faire and communitarian) have set the parameters governing the educational choice debate. Choice proponents argue that markets will make schools more efficient and egalitarian; critics view privatization as fragmenting the body politic. When institutional racism is factored in, privatization appears to further…

The story of School X started in South Africa in 1875. At that time, the school was built for white children only. More than hundred years later, the 1994 elections demarcated the end of the apartheid era and the school enrolled black Xhosa-speaking children for the first time. As a result, in 2004, 90% of the students were black Xhosa-speaking.…

This article argues that skills development in South Africa must be aligned to the economic and political imperatives of reducing unemployment and poverty, while fostering growth and international competitiveness. The legacy of a resource-based economy, overlaid by apartheid policies, has resulted in widespread poverty, inequality and unemployment…

The civil rights struggle for equal educational opportunity has yet to be achieved at the start of the 21st century. Inequality persists but problem and remedy are refrained from integrating schools, to ensuring equal access in resegregated settings, to closing the performance gap. As seen through ecological theory (R. S. Weinstein, 2002b),…

Commemorating and reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in "Brown v. Board of Education," this article reexamines their impact on school desegregation efforts. Specifically, this article traces the history of the Supreme Court's rulings in cases focused on outlining and clarifying the proper implementation of…

A major task of South Africa's new government in 1994 was to design a more racially equitable education system. This article evaluates progress towards this goal using three concepts of equity: equal treatment by race, equal educational opportunity, and educational adequacy. The authors find that the country moved quickly towards a race-blind…

Colleges and universities, once largely homogeneous communities, are being transformed by the new diversity of their populations, and sense of community is endangered by racial and ethnic grouping. "Emancipatory knowledges" (critical, feminist, postcolonial views of community) provide a framework and language for building a community…

In setting out to understand how South African school space was harnessed to the political project of apartheid, the author explores memory accounts from several adults who attended school during the apartheid era. Her analysis of their reminiscences found that non-pedagogic areas of the school and public domain beyond school premises were places…

In May 1954, the Supreme Court handed down its unanimous 9-0 opinion in "Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas" ("Brown I," 1954). In holding that de jure segregation in public schools based on race violated the Equal Protection Clause, the Court prepared American society for a larger concept, namely that children in…

In the wake of both the end of court-ordered school desegregation and the growing popularity of accountability as a mechanism to maximize student achievement, the authors explore the association between racial segregation and the percentage of students passing high-stakes tests in Florida's schools. Results suggest that segregation matters in…

By using a consolidated dataset of schools derived from a range of administrative systems, it is shown that overall public spending in the schooling system was close to being equal, though it marginally favoured the rich in 2005. A historical comparison reveals that the 2005 public spending pattern was around 17 times more equal than the apartheid…

Concerns have been raised over the potential of charter schools to re-segregate the nation's schools. This concern has been expressed mostly with respect to students with disabilities and with respect to ethnic and/or racial minorities. In this study, the enrollment statistics for charter and contiguous non-charter public schools in a large urban…

Athol Fugard, a white South African playwright/actor/director of international renown, has worked toward the establishment of an integrated, multiracial theater not associated with the white South African establishment. In his plays, Fugard has made racism and the ravaging effects of racial tension come alive as he presents aspects of these…

The paper explores the issue of mainstreaming and reviews some of the literature relevant to the educational environment of mentally handicapped children. Various viewpoints such as ambiguous efficacy results, effects on self-concept, lack of mainstream services, rejection of retarded children by normal peers, and racial segregation in special…