The Duplicity of Equality: An Analysis of Academic Placement in a Racially Diverse School and a Black Community

Abstract

Background/ContextFor more than four decades, researchers have shown that African American students are overrepresented in lower-track classes, while their White peers tend to be in advanced courses. In the past twenty years, school districts have implemented detracking reforms that stressed self-selection policies as an alternative to separate academic paths, yet quantitative data still show that most African American students are not attending upper-level or advanced classes in racially diverse schools.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of studyThis study explores how African American parents come to terms with academic placement, and the mechanisms that impact their child's educational experiences in a racially diverse school while coming from a segregated high-poverty African-American community.SettingResearch took place in a racially diverse suburban school and city. The suburban city is a microcosm of the United States, not only because of the racial and economic diversity of its school district, but also because its story encapsulates the plight of many African Americans in relation to the Great Migration, segregation, disinvested neighborhoods, and systemic inequalities.Population/participants/SubjectsParticipants included 26 African American parents, many of whom attended the same school district and experienced their own lower-track placement.Research DesignEthnographic methods, which include interviews and observations, were used to explore the research questions. African American parents were individually interviewed about their own educational experiences, children's academic placement, family background, interactions with the school system, community issues, and perceptions of the middle school and city.Findings/ResultsAfrican American students and their parents were a product of intergenera-tional tracking. Parents and their children had experienced lower-track courses. In addition, the exposure of African American students and parents to systemic inequalities in their home and community heavily influenced their academic placement and overall educational experiences. Moreover, tracking in this school was not necessarily about abilities and skills but also about separating African American students and creating a formal semblance of equality that actually reinforced systemic inequalities, a reality captured in the phrase “duplicity of equality.”