This paper explores two previously unstudied court challenges brought by black settlers in the territorial and early statehood period of Oklahoma (1889-1907). Oklahoma Territorial courts heard more challenges to segregated schools than in any state as these black pioneers challenged new legislation that segregated previously integrated territorial…

Political boundaries have historically been used to both segregate and integrate populations by social characteristics. Researchers have investigated the concentration of poverty, yet less attention has been given to the concentration of affluence, despite growing income segregation of the affluent from middle and low-income households. While the…

In this paper, I share the findings of my qualitative study of parental choice processes that reflected an intricate system of advantages and resulted in the creation and maintenance of increasingly segregated, like-minded school communities. Drawing on Dewey's conceptions of public and private and of democratic education, I argue that the…

Extant research has shown that students do better academically and socially when they are in schooling environments that are racially and socioeconomically diverse (Coleman, 1966). To date, there is very limited research which has examined the development of adolescents' racial, ethnic, and social identities within the contemporary contexts of…

AERA's 2016 theme is an exciting call for educational research that draws on history to inform present challenges and abiding societal dilemmas. In this regard, recent studies of African American segregated schooling have begun to illuminate the vibrancy, resilience, resourcefulness and professionalism that existed in African American school…

This paper focuses on how shifting conceptions of youth underpinned young people's activism in the 1950s and 1960s. This paper specifically examines conceptions of youth as it changed throughout the twentieth century. G. Stanley Hall articulated a distinct notion of "adolescence" in the early twentieth century. But the "Scottsboro…

School reform alone cannot substantially improve the performance of the poorest African American students. This performance problem must be addressed primarily by improving the social and economic conditions that bring too many children to school unprepared to take advantage of what schools have to offer. Integrating disadvantaged black students…

This article is a version of a lecture given by the author at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2012. He reviews his book, "Bad Teacher!: How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture." He examines the issues within the school reform movement in American public education--focusing on what he calls the "bifurcation of…

This study examines the narratives of three African American teachers who participated in an early desegregation plan that transferred selected African American teachers into all-White schools in the late 1960s and early 1970s. While many of these teachers experienced rejection in their new schools, the three African American teachers in this…

The purpose of this study is to expand the definition of adequacy by adding soft skills as a measure of school productivity. The singular focus on academic standards inherent in education policy has prevented scholars from seeing the concept of adequacy through myriad perspectives and has contributed to a resegregation of schools. Education policy…

The 1954 Brown Vs. Board of Education decision went beyond legal analysis to demonstrate the cruelty and immorality of discrimination against black children. It was asserted in the Brown decision that separate education cannot be equal education, and that segregation has a particularly detrimental effect upon black children. The negative impact of…

This paper cites some of the contributions that sociology has made to desegregation policy. The major contribution, made by public opinion research, is establishing the level of support or opposition to busing policy. A second contribution to desegregation policy has been made by those sociologists and social psychologists who have studied the…

Although many studies have used information at the school level to measure the degree of racial segregation between schools, the absence of more detailed data has limited the analysis of segregation within schools. Using a rich set of administrative data on North Carolina public schools, this paper examines patterns of enrollment both across and…

This paper considers the role of private schools in an assessment of segregation in K-12 schools, with special reference to the south. It presents evidence to support two main conclusions. First, private schools have grown in importance in the south since 1960, in contrast to their declining importance in the rest of the country. This contrary…

Those who favor expansion of consumer choice in education claim that competition would force schools to improve. Critics claim that it would sort students by race and class. A competitive market will provide what consumers demand, yet neither side has empirical evidence on such consumer preferences to back up their claims. This paper offers such…