This essay, written from the point of view of a social researcher with a direct personal involvement in the cases studied, discusses how public schools, as universally accessible moral communities, engage in patterns of systematic exclusion. Through three case studies of public secondary schools in which groups of students have been situated…

Explores ways in which public schools, which are supposed to be universally accessible moral communities, engage in patterns of systematic exclusion. Presents three case studies of secondary schools in which issues of exclusion of groups of students have arisen concerning ideologies of merit, choice, and tradition. (JS)