Designed to Fail: Media Representations of Racialized Classrooms and Schools

Abstract

Educational institutions are assumed to be racially neutral. However, media represents the achievement and ability of individual students and schools disparately and gives these attributes racial meaning. The scenes and sets in movies in the background seldom enter our consciousness and are assumed natural and normal in the context of movies and the stories they communicate. However, audiences, media institutions and set designers draw on shared cultural understandings to communicate and interpret the racial implications behind objects, placement of bodies, and scenery (Entman, 1993, pp. 52-53). Negative media portrayals of Black students and their school environments suggest that there is a problem with urban education. These representations and images suggest that the setting and the objects within it have purpose and meaning that is important in relaying the intended message. This study examines physical elements represented in classroom and school spaces in four movies: Akeelah and the Bee (2006), Finding Forrester (2000), Coach Carter (2005), High School Musical (2006). Utilizing a visual analysis of scenes depicting classrooms and school exteriors in these films, this study sought to examine how these representations of schools are presented as racialized spaces. Based on the data collected, the study concluded school spaces are represented disparately if they are assumed to contain Black racialized bodies than they are if they are assumed to be white spaces. Representations of urban schools with Black student populations contain multiple elements of surveillance, control and categorization.