Segregate, Discriminate, Signal: A Model for Understanding Policy Drivers of Educational Inequality

Abstract

Decades after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling banned mandatory race-based separation of students to different schools, school segregation, and inequality in the United States are rapidly increasing. In this research synthesis, I propose a model for explaining how segregation and inequality are formed in urban and suburban school systems and exacerbated even in the absence of formal segregation policy. The model describes segregation as a component in a triangle of discriminatory education policy processes: segregation, discrimination, and signaling. Connecting these three seemingly distinct policy practices could provide a better explanation for the growing inequality in the U.S. school system.