This unit is one of a series that represents specific moments in history from which students focus on the meanings of landmark events. This unit focuses on the black experience in the critical years after Reconstruction. Using the landmark decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the unit opens with an examination of conditions in black America…

Born into slavery in 1856, Booker T. Washington overcame staggering obstacles to lead emancipated blacks into a quiet revolution against illiteracy and economic dependence. In his lifetime, the national focus became more democratic, and the education of adults proliferated, bringing social change. The first public efforts to educate freed slaves…

The emphases of this paper are identification of system mechanisms and processes employed to achieve and enhance racial resegregation in education, placing an understanding of these mechanisms and processes within the context of the national desegregation efforts, presentation of the rationale for the National Institute of Education including…

Busing is examined as a tool of social change in the alteration of school structure from racial segregation to racial integration. A commentary is provided on the nexus between social change in education and other aspects of society and the utilization of busing as a tool of social change. Information is also presented on schools in urban and…

The complex interactions which led to the implementation of the court-ordered desegregation plans for two cities in Massachusetts involve not only the courts but many levels of government. The school departments, the school committees, the mayors, the State Board of Education, the legislature, the governor, and the citizens of Massachusetts, all…

This document contains a presidential draft of proposed legislation to establish procedures and standards for the framing of relief in suits to desegregate the nation's elementary and secondary public schools. Other purposes include the provision of assistance to voluntary desegregation efforts and the establishment of a national community and…

Critical race theory offers a way to understand how ostensibly race-neutral structures in education--knowledge, merit, objectivity, and "good education"--in fact help form and police the boundaries of white supremacy and racism. Critical race theory can be used to deconstruct the meaning of "educational achievement," to…

Examines some important noncognitive outcomes of school desegregation using national survey data. The National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 and other national studies show that desegregated schooling has a positive, statistically significant benefit for black students' later earnings and occupational attainment. (SLD)

This study describes and analyzes how five communities in the northeastern United States have addressed the subject of school desegregation. Dayton (Ohio), Hartford (Connecticut), Rochester (New York), Trenton (New Jersey), and Wilmington (Delaware) share the experience of having increasingly large, poor, minority populations surrounded by mostly…

Public policies towards special needs persons in advanced countries have improved tremendously over the last 20 to 30 years, whether the concept is described as mainstreaming, integration, or normalization. Both educational and family policies are changing, with educational policies emphasizing free and appropriate education in the least…

The economic and physical decline of urban neighborhoods has become a widespread and widely misunderstood phenomenon in post-war America. It has not been restricted to aging central cities: most growing cities and many suburbs possess areas of decay as well. After decades of changing occupancy, dwellings have fallen into disrepair, and the quality…

Recognizing the broad range of social and economic limitations associated with residential segregation, the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations initiated a research program to define the extent of these problems and to advance strategies for dealing with them. The initial phase of the project commissioned research papers which were reviewed and…

The student booklet presents short chapters illustrating the prejudice/discrimination unit of the Minneapolis Multi-Ethnic Curriculum Project for secondary schools. Fifteen brief chapters describe the ways Americans have and still do discriminate against the people of various ethnic groups. Topics cover the history and policies of the Know-Nothing…

In this review, historical events are used to depict those aspects of American and especially black history which preceded the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Slavery, the Civil War, and the civil rights movement are discussed. Efforts to achieve equal educational opportunity are described and an overview of school desegregation and other…

TO DETERMINE THE EFFECTS OF DESEGREGATION ON SCHOOL DISCIPLINE, PERSONAL INTERVIEWS WERE CONDUCTED WITH A LARGE NUMBER OF SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS AND BOARD OFFICIALS, PARENTS, STUDENTS, AND COMMUNITY LAY LEADERS. IT WAS FOUND THAT DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS WERE CAUSED BY THE STUDENT'S INSECURITY AND RESENTMENT AT BEING WHAT THEY CONSIDERED "PAWNS" IN THE…