“If only my eyes were different”: The loss of identity and the under-utilization of black children’s educational potential — rethinking social justice and assimilation

Abstract

This study explores how social identity is formed in the United States of America. In particular, it examines the social, economic and educational problems experienced by underachieving Black American children and issues of social inequality along with their implications for social justice. Against the background of matters of group identity and its maintenance or loss, the author reflects on the under-utilization of Black American children’s educational and human potential. She also suggests a rationale for re-conceiving the goal of social justice and how it is to be achieved, as well as the paradigm of cultural assimilation.