Mapping the Causes of Unequal Schooling and the Transformative Possibilities of Sociology

Long-standing debates about the sources of inequality shed light on the possibilities and limitations of sociology. At a presentation for teachers recently, I was asked what percentage of inequality in schools is the fault of students, parents, and teachers. Having just presented on my book, Academic Profiling, and the interlocking macromeso-micro processes reproducing educational injustices, this question caught me off guard. Individualizing and quantifying who is at fault seems to avoid talking about structural factors, institutional transformation, and our roles in maintaining a system of inequality. However, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Individualizing narratives are common. The persistence of such discourses and inequalities affirms the importance of sociology in researching, naming, and disrupting the causes of unequal schooling. But sociology’s more transformative potential exists in our connections with movements and others outside of the discipline. Debates surrounding the sources of educational inequality abound, and there is no shortage of scholarship contributing to our understanding. Decades ago, texts such as Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis’s Schooling in Capitalist America (1976) and Gilbert Gonzalez’s Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation (1990) detailed the role of the political economy in reproducing inequality in schools. Other foundational work, including Jeannie Oakes’ Keeping Track (1985) and Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities (1991), documented the impacts of school practices and disparate resources on students’ livelihoods. Together, these early studies illustrated some of the structural and institutional factors reproducing disparities and the detrimental impacts for poor and working-class students and students of color. More recent scholarship such as Pedro Noguera’s The Trouble with Black Boys (2008) has emphasized the centrality of race, or, in the case of Nancy Lopez’s Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys (2003) and Julie Bettie’s Women without Class (2003), presented intersectional lenses to unpack the significance of race, class, and gender on educational opportunities and experiences. Despite decades of research documenting the multiple factors fueling unequal schooling, power-evasive frameworks blaming individuals persist in popular discourse. Often, it is black and Latina/o students and their families who are blamed. In addition, in our current era of standardization and a narrow focus on achievement gaps, quantitative measurements are often privileged over the qualitative conditions that exist within our schools and society. Two recent qualitative studies—Schooling the Next Generation and Despite the Best Intentions—tackle this legacy of disparity, add to ongoing debates, and offer glimpses of possibilities for the work we do. In the context of structural inequalities, these two books home in on the dynamics occurring in today’s schools with varied resources. They are ambitious in their scope and offer insightful lessons for qualitative researchers and those committed to educational justice. Studying distinct schools and communities, they center different voices and reach varied Despite the Best Intentions: How Racial Inequality Thrives in Good Schools, by Amanda E. Lewis and John B. Diamond. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. 249 pp. $27.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780195342727.