By pairing the book with the film, we wanted the students to have a sense both of the harsh realities of urban schools and of the possibilities to transform and transcend those realities.
By pairing the book Savage Inequalities with the film Stand and Deliver, the authors wanted students to face both the harsh reality of scarce resources and unfair opportunities in urban schools, and see the possibility of breaking through structural dilemmas.
We took this idea of a dialogic or problem-posing pedagogy to heart when designing activities within our various units.
This design not only cultivates students' expression and collaboration abilities, but also conforms to the core goal of critical pedagogy of empowering students to become knowledge creators.
We sought to counter these traditions in our curriculum development and our pedagogies, and we sought to situate our work conceptually and em-pirically.
This strategy echoes Vygotsky's idea of using children's known world to carry out teaching, and also solves the problem of alienation between urban teenagers and canonical texts, rooting academic learning in students' daily cultural experiences.
By the same token, we were wary of those educators and literary theorists who equated multiculturalism with simply offering texts written by people of color or featuring people of color as protagonists
True multiculturalism is not the accumulation of textual forms, but the interpretation of all texts from an equal and critical perspective, avoiding oppressive interpretations of texts by ethnic minorities.
Studying canonical texts is an important strategy for under-standing the values and ideologies of dominant groups at various points in history.
This sentence reflects the authors' dialectical attitude towards canonical texts: classics are not unquestionable authorities, but windows to understand the values and ideologies of dominant groups.
Though critical literacy remained a goal of our pedagogy, we understood that critical literacy also demands a knowledge of and facility with the language of power. It is impossible to critique or refute texts that one does not understand; com-prehension is an important prerequisite for critique
Here the authors clarify the core relationship between critical literacy and mastery of the language of power. Critique is not groundless negation, but based on the understanding and application of the language of power.
Critical pedagogy is hotly discussed and highly debated in the academy. Its proponents draw upon important scholars (Freire, 1970; McLaren, 1994, 2003b; Giroux, 2001; hooks, 1994; Darder, 1991; Kincheloe, 2004; Shor, 1992) to argue for an approach to education that is rooted in the existential experiences of marginalized peoples; that is centered in a critique of struc-tural, economic, and racial oppression; that is focused on dialogue instead of a one-way transmission of knowledge; and that is structured to empower in-dividuals and collectives as agents of social change.
This sentence defines the core theoretical foundation and propositions of critical pedagogy. It is not an abstract educational concept, but anchored in the existential experiences of marginalized groups and focused on critiquing structural, economic, and racial oppression. This provides a theoretical framework for the authors to apply critical pedagogy to the English classroom of an urban high school in Oakland later, and also reflects the core characteristic of critical pedagogy of connecting theory with reality.
Often, if there is one lone person of color in the classroom she or he is objectified by others and forced to assume the role of "native informant." For example, a novel is re ad by a Korean American author. White students turn to the one student from a Korean background to explain what they do not understand. This places an unfair responsibility on to that student.
t was frustrating because I’m from a city in southern China where we don’t make dumplings for New Year, yet I was forced to be the expert on all things Chinese. The author is right: this objectifies minority students. We’re not cultural dictionaries, we’re individuals with our own experiences.
As I worked to create teacbing strategies tbat would make a space for multiculturallearning, I found it necessary to recognize wbat I have called in other writ-ing on pedagogy different "cultural codes." To teacb effectively a diverse student body, I bave to learn tbese codes. And so do students. Tbis act alone transforms tbe classroom. Tbe sbaring of ideas and information does not always progress as quickly as it may in more bomogeneous settings. Often, professors and students bave to learn to accept different ways ofknowing, new epistemologies, in the multicultural setting
I experienced the importance of cultural codes firsthand when I did a group project with American classmates. We were asked to present our research in a creative way, and I prepared a detailed poster with graphs and quotes, something common in my home country for academic presentations. But my teammates were confused: “Why not make a video or do a skit?” They explained that in U.S. classrooms, creative often means interactive or performative, not just visual.
Many professors have con-veyed to me their feeling that the classroom should be a "safe" place; that usually translates to mean that the professor lectures to a group of quiet students who respond only when they are called on. The experience of professors who educate for critica! consciousness indicates that many students, especially students of color, may not feel atall "safe" in what appears to be a neutral setting. It is the absence of a feeling of safety that often pro-motes prolonged silence or lack of student engagement
True safety isn’t about silence; it’s about feeling heard.
All too often we found a will to include those considered "marginal" without a willingness to accord their work the same respect and consideration given other work. In Women's Stud-ies, for example, individuals will often focus on women of color at the very end of the semester or lump everything about race and difference together in on e section. This kind of tokenism is not multicultural transformation, but it is familiar to us as the change individuals are most likely to make
Including marginalized perspectives isn’t about checking a bo, it’s about treating their work as seriously as the canon. Literature courses should integrate works from different ethnic groups throughout the semester, not as an afterthought. This way, we learn to see diversity as part of the core, not an add-on.
Arnong educators there has to be an acknowledgment that any effort to transform institutions so that they reflect a multi-cultural standpoint must take inta consideration the t'cars teachers have when asked to shift their paradigms. There must be training si tes where teac
This fear of shifting paradigms isn’t just about losing control; it’s about the lack of support for teachers to learn new methods. Multicultural education can’t work if educators are left to navigate the change alone, they need structured training, not just pressure to be more inclusive.
My sister, who is half Chinese, one-quarter Thai, and one-quarter Southeast Asian Indian, attended a historically Black college. Not by choice but by lack of cultural capital. As the eldest child in our family, she was the first to brave the collegiate admission process. Her high school counselor never called her in for counseling, "noticed her potential," or placed her in contact with various colleges and admissions offices around the country. Those consultations hap-pened frequently for her White counterparts. She had no idea when applications were due, what they entailed, what fee waivers were, or when to take standard-ized tests. She dreamed of attending James Madison University. She ended up at Norfolk State University because it was the only college to accept her applica-tion late. She dropped out before the midpoint of her first semester.
In my home country, the college application process is centralized: the government provides free workshops, and schools have mandatory counseling sessions for all seniors. But here, the burden is on the studen, and if you don’t have someone to teach you the rules, you’re already at a disadvantage. This isn’t a lack of effort, it’s a lack of access to the knowledge that wealthy families pass down as a given.
This form of early tracking, or dividing children into labeled groups based on the teacher's designation of their skill level, seems innocent. What we know, however, based on mounds of research-most notably among them Rist's (1970/2000) study of same-raced children of various social classes-is that teacher and peer expectations for academic achievement (and their subsequent treatment of students) are based largely on low and negative perceptions of the poor, regardless of their actual ability.
This early tracking isn’t just about skill level but about bias.The labels stick early, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you’re called a worm, teachers expect less, peers mock you, and eventually you believe you’re not smart enough. It’s a cruel way schools structure inequality before kids even understand what "class" means.
On the basis of the inability of far too many people of color, as well as a vast number of Whites-neither of whom inherited wealth from their forebears-to purchase homes or, more important, to purchase homes in a "good school dis-trict,,, housing segregation continues to plague the educational and social out-comes of multiple members of the underclass.
Same as China. The primary school and middle school is decide by the home place. But if you want to go to good high school, you have to get good grade in the test. I think it is important to give a chace for every student rechoosing their education enviroment by fair.
What scores of students-well-meaning educators, all-fail to realize is that public education does not serve its intended function as the great equal-izer. Quite contrarily, schools actually structure inequality (gasp!) in insidiously subtle ways. To introduce countless future teachers to this "radical" notion ' I devised a plan to combat pernicious thinking about poor students, the educa-tional "failures" of poor students, and the "self-inflicted" demise of the poor.
This quote shattered my previous assumption that schools are neutral spaces for learning. Before reading this, I thought inequality in education mostly came from outside factors, but the idea that schools actively structure it was a revelation.The teachers explained that tracking helps meet students’ needs, but it actually traps poor students in lower-level courses, limiting their future options.
Mann chided the economic elite for shirking obligations to their fellow man by favoring private education over common schools. He conceptualized public education as "the great equalizer," or the most powerful mechanism for abating class-based "prejudice and hatred," and, most important, the only means by which those without economic privilege or generational wealth could experience any hope of equal footing.
The emphasis on "the only means" here struck me. It implies how high the stakes are for U.S. public schools.The system’s design, which relies on local property taxes for funding, means schools in poor areas can never truly equalize opportunities, leaving those without generational wealth stuck in a cycle.
Unlike schooling in every other major industrialized country, public educaoo~ in this country is democratic and deeply local. Despite the rhetoric of presi-d . I d'd . . th 1· . that enua can 1 ates, it 1s not e federal government but states and loca 1oes carry most of the burden of public education. Until recently local prope_rtY taxes provided the hulk of the financing for public schools, and local officials ·11 ak d · · b · ..,,.,ents stl m e most ec1S1ons a out personnel and pedagogy. School ass1gn1~· _ for students are based on local district or community residence; when corn
As an international student who researched U.S. schools extensively before arriving, I experienced this deeply local system firsthand. I noticed huge differences in high school curricula across states: some required four years of math, while others only required three; some emphasized STEM, while others focused on the humanities. Even within the same state, school funding varied drastically, districts with higher property taxes had better facilities and more teachers. Back home, we have a national curriculum that ensures consistency in what students learn, so this local control was confusing at first. I can see its benefits: a rural district might focus on agricultural education to meet local needs, for example. But the downside is clear, students in poor districts don’t get the same opportunities as those in wealthy ones, which undermines the American Dream’s promise of equal starting lines.
Yet this progress has met limits. Hispanics and inner city residents still drop out much more frequently than others, the gap between black and white achievement rose during the 1990s after declining in the previous decade, the achievement gap between students from lower-and higher-class families has barely budged, and poor students in poor urban schools have dramatically lower rates of literacy and arithmetic or scientific competence. Most importantly, life chances depend increasingly on attaining higher education, but class back-ground is as important as ever in determining who attends and finishes a four-year college.
Learning about these persistent gaps was a wake-up call for me, as I’d previously heard mostly positive stories about U.S. education reform.This makes me think that progress in education isn’t just about passing policies. It’s about making sure those policies reach the most vulnerable groups.
The paradox stems from the fact that the success of one generation depends at least partly on the success of their parents or guardians. People who succeed get to keep the fruits of their labor and use them as they see fit; if they buy a home in a place where the schools are better, or use their superior resources to make the schools in their neighborhood better, their chil-dren will have a head start and other children will fall behind through no fault of their own
In my country, the government allocates school resources more centrally to reduce such gaps, so seeing this paradox in action makes me realize how deeply rooted it is in the U.S. system.
Public schools are where it is all supposed to start-they are the central institutions for bringing both parts of the dream into practice. Americans ex-pect schools not only to help students reach their potential as individuals but
Many public schools require community service hours for graduation, which is designed to foster civic responsibility. However, I’ve heard from local friends that this goal is unevenly achieved. Schools in wealthy suburbs can organize high-quality volunteer programs, while schools in poor areas often only offer basic service options, due to limited resources. This means the starting line of the American Dream isn’t the same for all students, even though public schools are supposed to level it.
HE AMERICAN DREAM IS A POWERFUL CONCEPT. It encourages each person who lives in the United States to pursue success, and it cre-ates the framework within which everyone can do it. It holds each person responsible for achieving his or her own dreams, while generating shared values and behaviors needed to persuade Americans that they have a real chance to achieve them. It holds out a vision of both individual success and the col-lective good of all.
As an international student, the definition of the American Dream here resonates with what I’ve heard before, but it also makes me reflect on the tension between individual pursuit and collective well-being. In my home country, success is often intertwined with family and community contributions, so the idea that "each person is responsible for their own dreams" feels both empowering and isolating.
Even more shocking, high-scoring poor kids are now slightly less likely (29 percent) to get a college degree than low-scoring rich kids (30 per-cent). That last fact is particularly hard to square with the idea at the heart of the American Dream: equality of opportunity.
The American Dream that emphasizes ability above all else is being shattered by the reality where family background prevails. Although high-achieving students from poor families possess academic potential, they may find it difficult to complete their college education due to factors such as economic pressure, lack of family support, and psychological stress. On the other hand, low-achieving students from wealthy families, even with mediocre academic abilities, can make up for the gap through family resources and graduate smoothly. This phenomenon where ability gives way to background means that the American education system has not only failed to narrow the class gap but has instead become a tool for class solidification, completely deviating from the core value of equality of opportunity.
More insidious and more widespread has been the rapid prolifera-tion of pay-to-play policies now imposed on students in more than half of American_ high schools. One nationwide survey in 2010 estimated that team fees and other costs of extracurricular sports averaged be-tween $300 and $400 per student. An annual survey of six Midwestern states found that pay-to-play fees for high school sports alone doubled from $75 in 2007 to $150 in 2012, while average marching band fees rose from $85 in 2010 to $100 in 2013. Even in California, where pay-to-play was found by the courts to be unconstitutional, schools circumvented the ruling by collecting "donations" that were, in effect, mandatory. 64 Some schools charge distinct fees for different sports; in Painesville, Ohio, cross-country costs $521, football $783, and tennis $933!65 In addition, equipment costs (formerly borne by the school, bur now typically borne by parents) amount to roughly $350 per year
After-school activities are originally an important way to cultivate soft skills such as teamwork and leadership. However, due to the policy of charging fees for participation, they have become the exclusive resources of affluent families. This gap not only affects students' comprehensive qualities, but also creates a hidden disadvantage in further education and employment. The experiences and skills accumulated by affluent students through after-school activities will become bonus points favored by universities during admissions and by employers, further widening the gap with poor students.
A first, fundamental fact is residential sorting. As we have seen in Port Clinton, Bend, Atlanta, and Orange County, rich and poor Ameri-cans are increasingly living in separate neighborhoods.21 Although not all kids attend schools based on their parents' residence, most still do. Thus, residential sorting by income over the last 30 to 40 years has shunted high-income and low-income students into separate schools
esidential spatial differentiation is an invisible driver of educational class segregation. This model of selecting schools through housing prices essentially links educational resources to economic capacity: affluent families secure quality education for their children by purchasing school district housing, while low-income families are excluded. This creates a vicious cycle where the wealthier one is, the more access they have to good education, and the better they can maintain their wealth through education — further solidifying class stratification.
On the measures most obviously controlled by school systems-spending, teacher quan-tity and quality, and counseling-the two schools seem broadly similar. What is decidedly not similar about these two schools, however, are their student populations, as measured by poverty rates, ethnic backgrounds, English proficiency, and even physical fitness. Santa Ana students are overwhelmingly poor and Latino and heavily Spanish-speaking, whereas Troy students come from ethnically diverse, eco-nomically upscale backgrounds. More striking still are the contrasts in the "output" measures of the two schools-graduation rates, statewide academic and SAT test scores, truancy and suspension rates. Students at Santa Ana are four times more likely than students at Troy to drop out, roughly ten rimes more likely to be truant or suspended, and only one third as likely to take the SAT
Educational outcomes depend not only on what schools provide, but also on what students bring with them to school. The two schools are barely different in hardware conditions such as per-student funding and teacher experience, yet their students' outcomes vary drastically — the core gap lies in the socioeconomic background of their student bodies.
Today, when I reflect on Ms. Hill's class, I realize that I simply did not know one of the most important aspects of the hidden curriculum: build social capital with teachers, guidance counselors, and other professional staff. If I had established a strong mentoring relationship with Mrs. Locket, who had referred me to the honors class in the first place, and with others in the building, they could have given me advice on how to handle the situation with Ms. Hill.
The "failure to accumulate social capital" mentioned by the author is a common dilemma for me and many other overseas students. When I first arrived abroad, I had absolutely no idea that I should take the initiative to talk with professors about academic plans and that I needed to maintain a relationship in advance if I wanted them to write recommendation letters for me. It was not until I saw local classmates regularly going to professors' offices to build connections that I realized this was an important part of the hidden curriculum.
As class went along Ms. Hill called on different individuals to read aloud passages from a text. Next, she asked us to analyze the passages and look for larger social meanings in them. I was uncomfortable speaking out because I did not want to make dumb comments.
Teachers' ability to handle race-sensitive issues directly determines the sense of belonging among minority ethnic students. Although many teachers have the intention to help students, they lack a deep understanding of racial inequality. Eventually, they end up becoming the executors of the hidden curriculum and hurting the students who actually need support.
According to some scholars, the school system privileges individuals who comply with dominant culture, like that of middle-class and upper-middle-class teachers, professional staff, and administrators (Bourdieu, 1984, 1986; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990; Musoba & Baez, 2009).
When I first went abroad to study, in order not to be regarded as an outlier, I deliberately imitated the speaking tones and classroom interaction styles of local classmates. I even dared not question the professors' viewpoints for fear of being labeled as disrespectful to authority. Only now do I realize that this was actually conforming to the conformist demands of the mainstream culture.
Research indicates that social class can influence cognitive abilities because a lack of money results in fewer experiences at muse-ums and traveling, fewer books in the home, and less access to preschool educa-tion (Bowles & Gintis, 2002; Good & Brophy, 1987)
This gap can create a vicious cycle: poor reading skills in primary school make it harder to understand texts in middle school, and when facing academic reading in university, the struggle becomes even greater. It’s like falling behind one step and then lagging further behind at every subsequent step.
Starting in kindergarten, schools rarely reward poor students for the quali-ties they bring to their schools: their perseverance, compassion, flexibility, patience, and creativity, just to name a few. Instead they are judged on quali-ties determined by dominant cultural norms: the attitudes, preferences, tastes, mannerisms, and abilities valued by a system that never was designed to meet their needs (Apple, 1982, 1990).
This kind of selective evaluation hurts people more than the lack of resources, because it will gradually make students deny their own values and feel that their inherent advantages are useless.
I didn't speak English. I saw different teachers. 1 saw different classmates .. 1 didn't understand what the teacher was saying. 1 couldn't find my classes and Thad no .friencls in school. 1 felt lonely. l c was a new school for me. Berkeley High School is a new school for me. Everything is new. But 1 like this school. Gene Sirngh, ESL Level l, L 996
Language can be learned gradually, but the loneliness of feeling "unseen" causes students to gradually give up on integrating into the community. Educational equity is not just about providing the same courses; it is more about offering tailored support to students with different needs. Otherwise, the system will only amplify existing gaps.
With the exception of m::irh and foreign language, class of 2000 ninth graders cook the same detracked classes in English, world history, and ethnic studies. However, rheir GPAs at the encl of ninth grade, when disaggregated by race, show the begin-nings of the achievement gap as measured by grades.
Students who have long received training in critical writing and in-class debates can quickly keep up with professors' thinking pace. In contrast, students from ordinary families in developing countries — even if they are fluent in the language — often fall slightly behind in essay structure and expression of ideas due to a lack of such early training. Over time, a GPA gap will naturally emerge. This shows that equal classrooms do not equate to equal outcomes.
Tracking is not the only school structure char Sl.,lpporrs thL: success o(high-achicving students. Policies such as self-scheduling also do so by perpetuating the myth th.=it students choose their own path-ways through high school.
Some of my classmates in the past, because they were unfamiliar with the faculty evaluation system, ended up enrolling in low-rated courses with unbalanced difficulty levels — which directly affected their GPAs. The so-called "freedom of choice" is essentially a privilege of those with more resources.
Pierre Bou:r<lieu (1977) argues that cultural knowledge, srnrus, and distinctions mcdi;:ice the rclarionship between economic structures, schooling, ;ind people's lives.
Ethnic minority students face such a dilemma: their behavioral habits and linguistic styles do not align with the prevailing dominant cultural capital of the school. Even if they meet the ability requirements, their potential is still likely to be underestimated. Over the long term, this leads students to develop self-doubt and eventually give up opportunities for advanced courses.
83 percent of rhc ninth graders who were placed in Math A, the low~crack prealgebra class, were African American. In contrast,►87 Qercent of students from that same cohort of ninth graJers \yho were placed in Honors Geometry, the advanced-track math class,
African American students are concentrated in lower-level courses, while white students dominate upper-level ones — as if students’ futures have been predetermined starting from the 9th grade. Even more worrying is that this stratification is not based on ability assessments; instead, it stems from stereotypes about ethnic minorities and resource deprivation. This is harder to break than direct discrimination, because it disguises itself as the result of personal choice.
Thus, whereas middle-class children are often treated as a project to be developed, working-class and poor children are given boundaries for their behavior and then allowed to grow
Such a disparity is not a matter of whether there is love or not, but rather a practical constraint on whether financial circumstances allow parents to devote time and energy. I can appreciate the importance of family support for academic performance, and parents from low-income families are not unwilling to provide that support — instead, they have been drained of their capacity by the pressure of making ends meet.
The study generated the often-cited finding that over a year's time, pro-fessional parents utter an average of eleven million words to their toddlers. The corresponding figures for working-class and welfare families were six and three million, respectively.
During group projects, I noticed that classmates from highly educated families tend to excel at expressing their views clearly and grasping academic concepts quickly. Only now do I realize this is the result of long-term immersion in a language-rich environment. Such early language advantages translate into subsequent reading skills, writing abilities, and even critical thinking. In contrast, children from low-income families, due to a lack of such linguistic input, gradually fall behind academically — and this gap is far harder to bridge than the one addressed by taking after-school classes.
Poor nutri-tion and inadequate health care have long-term effects on children's in-tellectual development. Exposure to lead paint affects children's nervous systems, resulting in hyperactivity and irritability, with long-term con-sequences for both intellectual and emotional development.
I came into contact with children from impoverished communities during my volunteer work. Some of them did have issues with inattention and emotional sensitivity. At the time, I thought these were personality issues, but now I realize they are physical and psychological trauma caused by an impoverished environment. Addressing academic gaps cannot rely solely on after-school tutoring provided by schools; it more importantly requires society to tackle basic issues faced by low-income families, such as nutrition, housing safety.
The ... soccer team's new warm-up suits, socks and shirts cost the Tallingers $100. Piano runs $23 per weekly lesson per child. Tennis clinic is $50; winter basketball $30. It costs the family money to drive to out-of-state tournaments and stay overnight. Fees for Garrett's summer camps have varied; some have cost $200 per week .. . [Mrs. Tallinger] reported expenditures for Garrett alone as exceeding $4,000 per year, a figure that other middle-class families also report."
Such spending disparities are not a choice between luxury and frugality, but rather a gap in whether one can meet developmental needs. During my study-abroad experience, classmates from affluent families around me often gained access to resources like research internships and overseas exchange programs much earlier. In contrast, financially constrained classmates might have to work multiple jobs at the same time to support their studies, making it hard for them to devote time to enhancing their soft skills. Economic resources thus exert an invisible monopoly over individuals' development opportunities.
It shows that children from families in the top 20 percent of the income distribution already outscore children from the bottom 20 percent by 106 points in early literacy. This difference is nearly twice the size of the gap between the average reading skills of white and both black and Hispanic children at that age, and nearly equal to the amount that the typical child learns during kindergarten. Moreover, the reading gap was even larger when the same children were tested in fifth grade. Gaps in mathematics achievement are also substantial
This data shocked me profoundly — when children first enter the formal education system, the income-related gaps in early literacy skills actually far exceed racial gaps, and are equivalent to an average child’s entire year of kindergarten learning outcomes. I have observed the "differences in starting points" among students from different countries, but never realized that the impact of "family income" on educational starting points could be so direct and profound. This shows that the pursuit of "educational equity" does not start from primary or secondary school; instead, it is already shaped in the family environment during children’s preschool years. Children from low-income families, right from the "starting line," face insurmountable barriers.