Racial Inequality in Education in the United States

Racial segregation in Education in the United States
In the face of an increasingly educational environment, Gary Orfield and Erica Frankenberg (2014) address the future of education. In a dynamic society of diversity, these researchers consider school administrators' and policymakers' role in shaping school curriculum and course. Since colored students are more divided, they have fewer opportunities. Many of the lucrative opportunities are reserved for White students who can afford to attend private schools. The school system seldom adapts to the varied needs of various populations but is often structured to compel the majority of the community to learn about the Whites' cultures. This is a situation that is analogous to Mary Crow Dog’s situation at the mission school. Those who fail to excel by the set standards are regarded as non-confirming and denied opportunities. This means that success is meant for those who can abandon their cultural backgrounds to become like the Whites.

A significant difference between the White and Colored students is their economic backgrounds. White students tend to have an upper hand when it comes to access to education. The education system is skewed in their favor and their families are able to afford good schools, unlike the situation for the Native Americans in Dog’s story whose only option was the mission schools (Dog and Erdoes 2012). Laia Becares and Naomi Priest (2015) examine this situation in the perspective of its impact on eighth-grade students from an intersectionality approach. Their research showed that due to the socioeconomic differences and, hence, educational access, White boys are more likely to perform better than the Colored counterparts.

Adam Gamoran (2001) discusses about the likelihood of the racial inequality to decline over the 21st century. He foresees a situation where racial affiliation will have lesser influence in the acquisition of education due to the changing labor market that has become more accommodative of the rest of the races. Therefore, children from all backgrounds are likely to have better access to education, which is a great improvement from the situation in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s.



References

Bécares, Laia and Naomi Priest. 2015. “Understanding the Influence of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Class on Inequalities in Academic and Non-Academic Outcomes among Eighth-Grade Students: Findings from an Intersectionality Approach.” PLoS One 10(10). (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0141363).

Dog, Mary C. and Richard Erdoes 2012. “Civilize them with a Stick.” Pp. 557-564 in Mapping the Social Landscape: Readings in Sociology. McGraw-Hill Education.

Gamoran, Adam. 2001. “American Schooling and Educational Inequality: A Forecast for the 21st Century.” Sociology of Education 74:135-153.

Orfield, Gary and Erica Frankenberg. 2014. “Increasingly Segregated and Unequal Schools as Courts Reverse Policy.” Educational Administration Quarterly 50(5):718-734.