The task of preparing and supporting new teachers for working with diverse youth has generated widespread interest in induction and mentoring programs (Wang & Odell, 2002). However, much of mentoring in practice falls short of equity- and diversity-focused work. It can be better characterized as "situational adjustment, technical advice, and…

Both in the United States and the United Kingdom there has been a recent resurgence of interest and support for "new localism" in response to the need to provide local solutions to national complex problems. In this paper, the authors begin by exploring the contextual framework in the U.S. and the UK, explaining recent policy reform and…

This volume is the second in a set of two published as the 2008 Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education. Planning for the volumes began more than five years ago, when the Society's Board of Directors expressed an interest in taking steps to encourage a more expansive, penetrating dialogue about education in democratic…

The persistent and significant achievement gap between black and Latino students and their white and Asian counterparts at Evanston (Illinois) Township High School (ETHS) has existed for as long as anyone can remember. Stories real and apocryphal abound about the institutional barriers that have denied fairness and opportunity for minority…

In Greenwich now for 3 years, Larry Leverett is making the transition from a career in urban schools to educational leadership in a suburban environment. This chapter describes his recruitment to the position, his personal struggle about leaving urban for suburban education, his adaptation to Greenwich, and the surprises, controversies, and…

Author Derrick Bell is not alone in wondering why "Brown v. Board of Education" commands such "awe and respect" in a nation where racial and ethnic groups remain separate and unequal in its public schools. Indeed, the ethnic disparities in academic achievement, the resegregation of public schools, and the ever-widening disparities in school…

This chapter is adapted from the address that inaugurated the American Educational Research Association annual lecture series commemorating the anniversary of the 1954 Supreme Court decision in the case "Brown v. Board of Education." The authors begin this chapter by paying tribute to Kenneth Bancroft Clark, who led the distinguished group of…

This article presents the author's response to Edmund Gordon and Beatrice Bridglall's paper titled "The Affirmative Development of Academic Ability: In Pursuit of Social Justice." Placing her comments in a historical context, the author states that Gordon and Bridglall point out that the "Brown v. Board of Education" case was the result of decades…

"Brown v. Board of Education" reminds this author, a linguist, of the linguistic diversity among black Americans, be they descendants of enslaved Africans--as he is proud to be--or Africans who escaped slavery. There is as much linguistic diversity among their race as among any other racial or ethnic group in the United States. When the Supreme…

This chapter attempts to begin a conversation about how so many of people in the educational and academic communities have come to believe that educational equity could be mediated by legal measures and federal and local reforms without transformation of the historical practices and ideologies that preserve supremacy and "White innocence"--a…

In examining the university structure, this chapter raises questions as to how institutional protocols can and should be put in place that will ensure that the commitment to urban education is being met, specifically in teacher preparation. In responding to Gutierrez and Jaramillo, these authors do two things. First, they attempt to characterize…

The parallels between South Africa and the United States run deep. For the United States, that moment of transition, at least as far as education is concerned, was the landmark ruling of 1954, described in the shorthand, "Brown v. Board of Education"; for South Africa, that moment came 40 years later when every citizen could, for the first time,…

In his critique of academic writing about and public consumption of government policy and law, Jonathan Jansen uses his argument of the symbolic functions of education law and education policy as a basis for explaining the lack of progress in achieving equity and justice under "Brown v. Board of Education" (1954) in the United States and the lack…

Although this author knew very little about the details of "Brown v. Board of Education" as a legal matter when he read about it as a young second-year student at the University of Cape Town in 1954, the Court's verdict had a direct influence on his political perspectives and on his aspirations as a would-be teacher for the rest of his life. In…

This chapter argues that a detailed, grounded understanding of classroom literacy practices as well as of learners' writing is crucial to begin to change the ongoing and patently unequal educational outcomes that schools often produce. It is impossible to intervene realistically and effectively in an evidential vacuum. The 1955 "Brown v. Board of…