The Complex Web of Inequality in North American Schools: Investigating Educational Policies for Social Justice

The Complex Web of Inequality in North American Schools analyzes and challenges the critical gaps and inequalities that persist in the American school system. Showing how historical biases have been inherited in current polices relating to non-dominant youth, the text calls for educational reforms that perform in the name of social justice.

This edited collection carefully interrogates how technocratic educational policies and reforms are often unequipped to address the interplay of political, social, economic, ideological factors that are at the roots of educational injustice. Considering the most vulnerable student populations, original case studies explore how inadequate structures, practices, and beliefs have increased marginalization, and highlight those instances in which policy has proved effective in reducing opportunity gaps between economically rich and poor students; between white, Asian, Black and Latino youth; between native English speakers and second language learners; highlighting racial integration and unequal American Indian education; and for students with special educational needs. The insights into such policies shed light on the complex web of historically embedded inequities that continue to shape the construction, roll-out, and consequences of education policy for the most marginalized youth populations today.

This volume will be of interest to graduate, and postgraduate students, researchers and academics in the fields of education policy, sociology of education, economics of education, and history of education, and well as policy evaluation.

Gilberto Q. Conchas is Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of California, Irvine, USA.

Briana M. Hinga is Assistant Professor of Clinical Education at the University of Southern California, USA.

Miguel N. Abad is Doctoral Candidate in Educational Policy and Social Context at the University of California, Irvine, USA.

Kris D. Guiterrez is Professor of learning sciences, research methodology, policy, and literacy at the University of California, Berkeley, USA.