Rethinking Compensatory Education: Historical Perspectives on Race, Class, Culture, Language, and the Discourse of the “Disadvantaged Child”

Abstract

As historians, we think that providing fresh perspectives on how the discourse of the “disadvantaged child” was constructed, evolved, and perceived in the past may provide fresh insights for the future. Framed by the civil rights movement, the “rediscovery” of and “war” on poverty, the Vietnam War, and epochal changes in federal education policy, our articles raise questions about common themes. We examine studies of genetic, environmental, and cultural determinants of school achievement; psychological, sociological, and education research on poverty, race, child rearing, language acquisition, nonstandard English, and bilingual education; exemplary compensatory education programs; sources of resistance to compensatory education; and media coverage and terminology about “cultural deprivation,” “educational disadvantage,” children “at risk,” and “social” and “cultural capital.”