This article was presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, September 2012 Cadiz, Spain. The article argues that community dialogue and participation is a vital dynamic in desegregation and explores the centrality of forms of empowerment which can be described as "inclusive community development" (ICD). The segregation…

Recent research suggests that high-stakes standardized testing has played a negative role in the segregation of children by race and class in schools. In this article we review research on the overall effects of segregation, the positive and negative aspects of how desegregation plans were carried out following the 1954 Supreme Court decision…

This article examines a wide array of research on the link between school choice programs and student segregation and draws implications for the Obama Administration's policy promoting the national expansion of charter schools. The research demonstrates how the proliferation of charter schools risks increasing current levels of segregation…

Background/Context: In-school racial segregation, also called second-generation segregation, is a social dynamic that is manifest in different and complicated ways in schoolhouses across the United States. This study sought to investigate how building-level leadership facilitates or impedes the practice of racial equity in an urban high school,…

Virginia has a long and complicated history with school desegregation efforts. It is a state that can lay claim both to advancing the goals of "Brown v. Board of Education" and to impeding them. Over the years, this history has helped shape contemporary patterns of school segregation across Virginia and in her major metropolitan areas.…

To introduce their examination of the social production of segregated space and power relations in Oxnard, California from 1934 to 1954, the authors utilize portions of a letter written by Alice Shaffer, April 21, 1938, to the Oxnard School Board of Trustees. Shaffer outlines the seemingly shared concerns of her neighbors about a disruption of the…

The year 1968 denotes a particularly salient moment in American history, not least because it marks the year in which the Civil Rights movement lost its charismatic leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. The assassination of King on April 4, 1968, resulted in widespread and spontaneous uprisings across the country, including one in Kansas City. Not…

Educational and sociological scholars frequently debate how racial dynamics between neighborhoods and their public schools can maintain or exacerbate educational inequality. Drawing on secondary data from the Georgia Department of Education, 2000 Census Bureau, and attendance boundaries for metro Atlanta public high schools, this study…

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…

This book explores a profoundly negative narrative about legally segregated schools in the United States being "inherently inferior" compared to their white counterparts. However, there are overwhelmingly positive counter-memories of these schools as "good and valued" among former students, teachers, and community members.…

This critical policy analysis uses critical race theory to provide a counter narrative to the P-16 initiative in Texas known as "Closing the Gaps 2015". Findings indicate that while these reforms aim to increase educational access and achievement for people of color, they fall short of addressing systemic inequities such as enduring…

Background: In 1954, the "Brown v. Board of Education" case involved four states and their school segregation laws and policies. During that period, de jure and de facto segregation were a way of life in America. Sixty years later, as most schools across the country have resegregated, the authors ask the question of whether we should be…

Before Heman Sweatt, an African-American from Houston, won his lawsuit to attend the University of Texas (UT) School of Law, Carlos Cadena, a Mexican-American from San Antonio, was among its brightest students. Cadena graduated summa cum laude from the law school in 1940, a decade before Sweatt's lawsuit forced UT to open its graduate and…

A series of policy shifts over the past decade promises to change how Americans decide where to send their children to school. In theory, the expanded use of standardized test scores and the boom in charter schools will allow parents to evaluate their assigned neighborhood school, or move in search of a better option. But what kind of data do…

School systems around the United States are heavily segregated by income and race. At the same time, an achievement gap between white and nonwhite students persists despite many efforts to close it. Against this background, in this white paper the authors explore the history and successes of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity…