Sociology (Race, Class & Gender)

INSTITUTIONAL DISCRIMINATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The United States is a country with a very long and painful history of discrimination based on race , social status , and gender . To understand how groups are marginalized in society , one must also understand how these divisions occur . The schools , given their important socialization role with the inculcation of cultural values and norms that are intrinsically related to social class and status , becomes of utmost importance in understanding this phenomenon

In May of 2009 CNN reported of a California public school principal who decided to separate

minority students from the general school population in order to give them a `specialized ' assembly meant to encourage them to improve their test scores . This created a backlash among parents and students due to the racial undertone in the action . However , a member of the school board said .student test data is grouped by racial and ethnic lines . he [the principal] didn 't invent these groupings ( HYPERLINK "http /www .cnn .com /video /video /bestoftv /2009 /05 /15 /hln .wm .segregated assembly .cnn http /www .cnn .com /video /video /bestoftv /2009 /05 /15 /hln .wm .segregated .a ssembly .cnn

The persistent inequality in the quality of education received by minority students in relation to the majority students could be due to structural implications that produce these inequities along biological lines

Feral Chideya goes into greater detail regarding institutional discrimination in her book Don 't Believe the Hype : Fighting Cultural Misinformation About African Americans ' Her findings and the occurrence at the...