Spatial Traditions of Knowledge and Education: Ethnic Groups in the United States Reconsidered

Abstract

One prime factor of social stratification is ethnic affiliation. Even though most social scientists think of ethnicity as a soft and subjective category constructed for distinct purposes, it involves hard powers of identification and real conflict. Possibly nowhere else can this effective force be better gauged than in the field of education and public schooling, particularly in the United States and its long-standing tradition of ethnic power relations. Internal structures and learning outcomes alike are ethnically biased in one way or another. The chapter shows that there is a distinct geography to this tradition. The official rhetoric about establishing a system of public schools as an anchor for equal opportunity and democratic values collides with the day-to-day ethnic reality of failure, suppression, and low achievement among ethnic minorities. One cannot understand American public education as experienced within these groups without also understanding the historic roots and traditions of the school system.