Logic and Compassion in Educational Equity
Beginning Part II, the section titled “Systemic Racism and Education Inequality,” author Prudence L. Carter discusses the many challenges in addressing educational inequality. Her chapter called “Systemic Racism in Education Requires Multidimensional Solutions” analyses the multitude of sources of the “achievement gap” as well as offering a global approach to considering solutions.
Students of color across the country do not have the same access to the same opportunities, resources, or securities. Interventions, therefore, cannot exist in only one area of their lives. Steps towards equity need to be taken in their school and extra-school environments, addressing everything from housing, community, wages, and healthcare, to underfunded schools, disproportionate suspensions and expulsions, and student and teacher discrimination.
Dr. Carter identifies three levels of inequality that need to be discussed. The first is macro-level inequalities. This level consists of global, universal, and systemic issues that are rooted in history and have compounded generationally. These issues stem from the continued impact of our nascent slave nation, legal segregation, and continued missed opportunities to close gaps in policy. She provides an example in the GI bill, which offered low-interest mortgage rates and tuition stipends to soldiers returning from WWII. This bill allowed many low-income white people to own a house and get an education, benefits which they were able to pass along as generational wealth.
The bill was not as helpful to black soldiers, as the Federal Housing Administration and banks colluded to deny non-white applicants loans, and segregation in higher education prevented black people from being able to take advantage of stipends. Wealth disparity has a significant impact on education disparity, from the unequal distribution of property taxes to the opportunities for generational wealth given to white people and denied to black people. This example of the historical accumulation of disadvantages demonstrates the major implications for today’s youth.
One level smaller is the meso-level. This level deals with structures that contribute to inequality. Dr. Carter identifies both hard and soft structures. Hard structures are codified and deliberate, such as finances, curriculum, teacher quality, and equipped labs and classrooms. Soft structures are just as real and significant but are sometimes harder to quantify. These soft structures include things like a culture of low expectations, implicit bias in teachers, de facto segregation in schools and after-school activities, and racial and social boundaries in supposedly multicultural schools.
The closest level is the micro-level, which involves things like personal decisions and interactions. Most people want their child to go to the best school possible. This results in many middle and upper-class white students attending schools where they never interact with poorer students of color. In today’s climate, there are also subtle and overt acts of racism, discrimination, and hostility from teachers, students, and administrators that black students have to navigate.
Dr. Carter notes how schools can serve as a microcosm of our society. Issues present in the adult world are reflected there and vice versa. In order to address the myriad of contributors to the achievement gap, she advocates for flexible mindsets, equitable opportunities, and empathetic hearts.
Transforming the educational landscape will have a profound impact on our society as a whole, and I see many benefits stretching beyond education as we can learn to approach challenges with the multidimensional, logical, and compassionate mindset described by Dr. Carter in this chapter.
About the Author
Stella Hudson is a Graduate Assistant with the Baha’i Chair for World Peace. She graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2021 with a B.A. in English. She is attending the University of Maryland and pursuing a Master’s of Library and Information Science.