Education
Education
Benefits of education
 Indian boarding schools
 African-American education
 Washington vs. Du Bois
 Brown v. Board of Education backlash
 Whiteness in education
 Educational inequality
 Affirmative action

Education
Benefits of education
 Indian boarding schools
 African-American education
 Washington vs. Du Bois
 Brown v. Board of Education backlash
 Whiteness in education
 Educational inequality
 Affirmative action

Benefits of education

Multiple studies have concluded that
individuals with more education
compared to those with little education
have
– higher incomes
– more stable marriages
– live longer
– live healthier lives
“I Have a Right to Think!”
Racial Battles over Education,
1900-1970
Education
Benefits of education
 Indian boarding schools
 African-American education
 Washington vs. Du Bois
 Brown v. Board of Education backlash
 Whiteness in education
 Educational inequality
 Affirmative action

Indian Boarding Schools

Boarding schools were one instrument used to
“civilize” and Anglicize America’s indigenous people
and was done so in a hurtful manner
Indian Boarding Schools
American Indian children were taught
that their culture was evil and uncivilized
 If they resisted, children were punished
harshly; some were even killed

– schools used military-style discipline
– punished for singing traditional songs
– students are not allowed to speak in their
native language
Indian Boarding Schools

Christian missionaries sometimes threatened
to deny food rations to American Indian
parents in order to get them to send their
children to boarding schools
 parental visits were discouraged
Education
Benefits of education
 Indian boarding schools
 African-American education
 Washington vs. Du Bois
 Brown v. Board of Education backlash
 Whiteness in education
 Educational inequality
 Affirmative action

African-American Education

reasons for why whites worked to deny
blacks educational opportunities
– it would be more difficult to exploit them as cheap labor
• “Educate a nigger and you spoil a good field hand!”
– it would give them access to stable jobs
– whites would incur a symbolic cost
• Poor whites knew education was “the great equalizer”
– it would give them access to money or maybe power
Education
Benefits of education
 Indian boarding schools
 African-American education
 Washington vs. Du Bois
 Brown v. Board of Education backlash
 Whiteness in education
 Educational inequality
 Affirmative action

Washington vs. Du Bois
Industrial
education!
Are you
kidding?
Booker T. Washington

the “Atlanta Compromise”
– called blacks’ desire for political power a
mistake and said that they should not strive
for equality with whites

whites liked the compromise
Washington proposed
– received philanthropic support and political
backing to begin a program of industrial
education at the Tuskegee Institute he
founded in 1880
W.E.B. Du Bois

wrote In the Souls of Black Folk, in
which he comments about education
and trades
– believed that black education should be no
different than white education
– While some could criticize Du Bois’s beliefs
as elitist, he believed in education for
blacks and especially placed the burden on
the “talented tenth” to help turn the tide.
Washington vs. Du Bois
Booker T. Washington
Tuskegee Institute
“Atlanta Compromise”
W.E.B. Du Bois
NAACP
No compromise
Industrial education
Talented tenth
Education should
develop better trained
laborers
The most talented
members of the race
should educate
themselves to uplift all
blacks
What were the benefits and shortfalls of each program?
Education
Benefits of education
 Indian boarding schools
 African-American education
 Washington vs. Du Bois
 Brown v. Board of Education backlash
 Whiteness in education
 Educational inequality
 Affirmative action

Backlash

In 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education, the
Supreme Court hand down a decision that
dismantled the legal basis of racial
segregation

The Supreme Court suggested that states
respond to Brown with “all deliberate speed”

Southern whites mounted a backlash against
desegregation, forming Citizens Councils

The Little Rock Nine desegregated Central
High with an armed military escort
Little Rock Nine
Brown’s Legacy
Because Americans’ neighborhoods are segregated
and because where you live
determines where you go to school
schools remain separate and unequal
even though legalized segregation is no more
Residential
segregation
School
segregation
How segregated was your high
school?
Within your high school, did you
notice a pattern of separate and
unequal?
That is, were some students
overrepresented in the
accelerated classes?
Education
Benefits of education
 Indian boarding schools
 African-American education
 Washington vs. Du Bois
 Brown v. Board of Education backlash
 Whiteness in education
 Educational inequality
 Affirmative action

Whiteness in Education
Eurocentric history
 Normalizing whiteness
 Whiteness on college campuses

Whiteness in Education
Eurocentric history
 Normalizing whiteness
 Whiteness on college campuses

Eurocentric History

Eurocentric accounts consider the
stories and experiences of Americans of
European descent to be central to
American history, while marginalizing
the stories of non-Europeans

E.g., the Emancipation Proclamation
Eurocentric History

the following concepts could still be
found within state-approved textbooks
as late as the 1950s
– justification for slavery
– criticism of Reconstruction
– mourning the fall of the Southern system
– inflating whites’ sense of accomplishments
regarding slavery
Eurocentric History

ignore how nonwhite groups contributed to
the development of the United States
– Nat Turner’s slave revolt
– memoir of an Asian American railroad worker
– stories from African American sharecroppers
– diaries of Mexican farm workers in California
Eurocentric History

Cast America as a white nation and dull
the sharp edge of past injustices
– the following historical events are usually
glossed over by Eurocentric historians and
is not as well known among the majority of
U.S. citizens:
•
•
•
•
the hell of being a slave in the United States
anti-immigrant violence and discrimination
story of Emmett Till
the Indian Wars
Whiteness in Education
Eurocentric history
 Normalizing whiteness
 Whiteness on college campuses

Normalizing Whiteness

Literature
– Literary classics written by white authors
– Non-white characters are racially marked

Anthropology
– Eroticization of nonwhite cultures
– White cultures considered uninteresting, normal

Feminism
– Movement led by white women
– Overlooks how the experience of being a woman
varies across racial and class lines
How has whiteness informed
your education?
Is whiteness normalized in your
current classes?
If so, what are the consequences of
this normalization?
Whiteness in Education
Eurocentric history
 Normalizing whiteness
 Whiteness on college campuses

Whiteness on College Campuses

Nonwhite students often feel isolated and
unwelcome on campus and in dorms

They sometimes receive differential treatment
and are given lower marks by instructors

They are confronted by racist jokes, remarks,
Halloween costumes, and school mascots
Nationally, 1 in 4 students of color
report having been a victim of racially motivated
verbal or physical attacks
during their college career
Education
Benefits of education
 Indian boarding schools
 African-American education
 Washington vs. Du Bois
 Brown v. Board of Education backlash
 Whiteness in education
 Educational inequality
 Affirmative action

Educational Inequality
statistics
 The Crisis of Latino Education
 Gender and Intraracial Differences
 What Explains Educational Inequality?

Educational Inequality
statistics
 The Crisis of Latino Education
 Gender and Intraracial Differences
 What Explains Educational Inequality?

Racial Disparities between Enrollment and
Drop Out Rates in College
45
40
35
30
Enrollment in College in
2000 (age 18-24)
25
20
Drop out rates for First
year College students
15
10
5
0
Latinos
Blacks
Whites
Percentage of High School Student Dropouts
12%
22%
10%
Whites
Asians
Blacks
Puerto Ricans
17%
Mexican Americans
Native Americans
20%
19%
Educational Inequality
statistics
 The Crisis of Latino Education
 Gender and Intraracial Differences
 What Explains Educational Inequality?

The Crisis of Latino Education

Compared to whites and Asians, blacks are more
likely, and Hispanics and Native Americans much
more likely, to drop out of high school

When it comes to applying to college, Asian, white,
and black high school seniors are far more likely to
submit college applications than Hispanic seniors

Hispanic college attendance remains the lowest in
the country, relative to whites, blacks, and Asians
Educational Inequality
statistics
 The Crisis of Latino Education
 Gender and Intraracial Differences
 What Explains Educational Inequality?

Gender and Intraracial
Differences

Women are graduating from college at higher rates
than men
– African American women are outperforming African
American men on all educational aspects.

Disparities are prevalent within racial groups, not
just between them
– Mexican Americans have lower educational aspirations
and expectations than Puerto Ricans and Cubans
– S.E. Asians and Pacific Islanders are behind Korean,
Japanese, and Chinese peers in all academic respects
Educational Inequality
statistics
 The Crisis of Latino Education
 Gender and Intraracial Differences
 What Explains Educational Inequality?

What Explains Educational Inequality?
1. Economic Inequality
2. Family Dynamics
3. Cultural Dynamics
4. School Dynamics
The Role of Economics

Economic inequality and educational inequality
are wound tightly together

Students with highly educated and wealthy parents
are advantaged in the educational realm

Because of racialized economic inequality,
black and Hispanic parents have fewer
resources to invest in their kids’ schooling
Estimating the cost of college
The Role of the Family

Cultural Capital: the sum total of one’s knowledge
of established cultural activities and practices

cultural capital within the dominant culture of the
United States
– knowledge of opera
– knowledge of art
– knowledge of classical music
– knowledge of classics of literature
• All of these collectively can be referred to as
“high-brow” culture
• knowledge of written and spoken English can
also be included in cultural capital
The Role of the Family

Abundance of cultural capital encourages academic
success
– A child who possesses large amounts of cultural
capital becomes endowed with characteristics
such as structure, openness, discipline, and
maturity.
The Role of the Family

Leads to understanding hidden curriculum:
unspoken values, dispositions, social and behavioral
expectations
• emailing your professor for clarification
• challenging your grade
• being recognized by an instructor as being “similar” to
them
• coming to class with specific expectations of instructor
The Role of the Family

Social Capital: the sum of all resources one
accrues by virtue of being connected to a network of
people
Social Capital Cartoon
Social Capital Clip

Familism is an important component of Hispanic
culture
How did your family prepare you for
college?
Did your parents pass on to you some
cultural or social capital?
How might your comfort level on your
campus be indicative of your cultural
capital?
The Role of Culture

The Fallacy of Undifferentiating Difference: Takes hold of
all the extremely diverse histories and social experiences
of nonwhite groups and flattens them
It is only after this flattening is executed that one can ask,
“Why are Asians outpacing blacks and Hispanics in school?”

Involuntary versus voluntary minorities: Historically,
certain racial groups were brought to the U.S. against
their will, while others voluntarily migrated here
Economic privileges of voluntary minorities, accrued in their
home countries, translate into other kinds of privileges
Jews and Asians are considered voluntary minorities
The Model Minority Myth

Americans of Chinese, Indian, and Korean
descent are advantaged in the educational realm

Americans of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and
Pacific Island descent are disadvantaged

Stereotype of the model minority allows racial
attributes to take precedence over personhood

The model minority stereotype is marshaled to
oppress and humiliate other nonwhite groups
“Positive” Stereotype?
Every “positive” stereotypical statement invokes its antipode
“To be intelligent
is to be calculating and too clever;
to be gifted in math and science
is to be mechanical and not creative;
to be polite
is to be inscrutable and submissive;
to be hard working
is to be an unfair competitor for regular human beings.”
~Frank Wu
Oppositional Culture

A collection of linguistic, behavioral, aesthetic, and
spiritual attitudes and practices formed in direct
opposition of mainstream white culture
“Selling out”
“Acting white”

Molded by structural and historical forces; rooted in
slave times and conditioned by economic inequality

Many scholars have been critical of the way this
concept has been used
Who’s Selling Out Whom?
Could it be that
it is not the student’s cultural attributes that are
the problem
but the school’s interpretation of those attributes?
Could it be that black and Latino students do not
disengage from school
but that the school disengaged from them?
Racial Identification
Stereotype Threat:
Negative Stereotype Attached
Stereotype threat triggered
Lower Performance
“being at risk of
confirming a selfcharacteristic, a
negative stereotype
about one’s group”
The Role of Schools

Schools are a powerful institution that aids
the continuation of educational inequalities

segregation
– The average white student attends a school that is
at least 80% white
– But 7 out of 10 Latinos and African Americans
attend schools where the majority is nonwhite

funding disparity
– rich states are given more federal funds than
poorer states with large nonwhite populations
• the federal government awards Arkansas $964 per poor
child but awards Massachusetts $2,048 per poor child
The Role of Schools

lack of qualified teachers
– qualified teachers have little or no real
incentives to teach in poorer
neighborhoods
• In predominantly poor nonwhite areas, many
students are taught by unqualified teachers
– In Illinois, only 11% of teachers in majority-white
schools scored in the lowest quartile on a state test,
whereas, 88% percent of teachers scored in the
lowest quartile in schools with virtually no white
students
The Role of Schools

Achievement disparity
– A public school serving primarily wealthy,
white students has a 1 in 4 chance of
producing consistently high standardized
test scores.
– One serving primarily poor, nonwhite
students has about a 1 in 300 chance.
The Role of Schools

Tracking

Tracking is the practice of sorting students into
different tracks, ostensibly according to their
ability

Disproportionately, Asians and whites are
assigned to higher tracts

Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans are
assigned to lower ones
Education
Benefits of education
 Indian boarding schools
 African-American education
 Washington vs. Du Bois
 Brown v. Board of Education backlash
 Whiteness in education
 Educational inequality
 Affirmative action

The Reality of Affirmative Action

Affirmative action does not give preference to
“unqualified” minority students, resulting in the denial of
qualified students

White and Asians continue to apply to, enroll in, and
graduate from college at higher rates than Native
Americans, African Americans, and Hispanics

Many qualified white and Asian applicants are rejected
from universities because their spots were reserved for
socially privileged white applicants with ties to the school
1 in 7 students at top universities are legacies
Are those who say that affirmative
action discriminates against
whites and Asians harboring a kind
of misplaced resentment
since it is not affirmative action
but legacy-favoring practices
that deny a number of qualified students,
white and nonwhite alike,
a place at the table?
Its Impact

Affirmative action has been effective in
helping to minimize gender- and race-based
exclusion

When UCLA banned race conscious
admissions, the percentage of black
freshman decreased by 50%
Is affirmative action enough?
Does Affirmative Action Stigmatize Minorities?
Education
Benefits of education
 Indian boarding schools
 African-American education
 Washington vs. Du Bois
 Brown v. Board of Education backlash
 Whiteness in education
 Educational inequality
 Affirmative action
