In 1935, W.E.B. Du Bois asked his readers: “Does the Negro need separate schools?” In his own answer to that question, Du Bois argued that “there is no magic, either in mixed schools or in segregated schools.” There are no easy answers as to how to best offer a “proper education” to Black children in a racist society, Du Bois warned, given that “other things are seldom equal.” This book, under contract with NYU Press, picks up the dilemmas that Du Bois named, almost a century later, asking: What can diversity offer to students and communities seeking greater educational justice, and what can it not offer? What – and who – is diversity for? How can educational policy, practice, and pedagogy address the costs, as well as the benefits, of diversity?
Many urban school systems that have long served majority low-income students of color deliberate over how to best attract and retain middle-class and professional families, who are typically White. At the same time, advocates pressure school districts to change admissions policies that exacerbate racial and socioeconomic segregation in cities across the nation. However, these deliberations approach students as the objects, rather than the subjects, of educational policy. No Magic offers a much-needed intervention in the field by centering the experiences, interactions, and perceptions of students in diverse educational settings.
While advocates and policymakers focus upon school zones and student assignment policies, students and educators must grapple with the lived realities of racially diverse learning environments. The book draws on six years of ethnographic data with kindergartners, sixth graders, and high school students in New York City. New York’s dual status as one of the most liberal cities and the one of the most segregated school systems in the nation has long preoccupied advocates, policymakers, practitioners, and researchers. I use observations of classrooms, community meetings, and public protests, together with interviews, to foreground how young people experience diversifying learning environments.
Underlying diversity debates is the question of what constitutes educational justice: not merely what we have long expected of public schools, but if and how they can be different. I argue that if we wish to address Du Bois’s observation that “other things are seldom equal,” we must examine the hidden, racialized curriculum of both educational policies and classroom interactions. No Magic demonstrates that if we want to address educational inequality, we must fundamentally rethink how we “do school.”
From Unequal Lessons project page
New York City schools are among the most segregated in the nation. Yet over seven decades after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, New Yorkers continue to argue about whether and how school segregation matters. Amid these debates, the author dives deep into the roots of racial inequality in diversifying schools. The book troubles widely held but frequently underexamined beliefs about what racial diversity and school integration can and cannot offer us. The author leverages six years of observations and interviews with children, parents, educators, and district policy makers about the stakes of educational diversity in New York City and the nation to propose new ways to understand both the costs and the benefits of school diversity and integration.
Featuring portraits of students from kindergarten to twelfth grade, the book focuses on the hidden curriculum of school diversity and integration, examining the lessons kids learn from diverse learning environments, inside and outside school. The book takes us inside classrooms and teen activist meetings, revealing the roles that various policy actors—teachers, school and district administrators, and students—play in making education policy on the ground. By examining how young people negotiate, accommodate, and resist racialized inequality, the book urges us to pay careful attention to what constitutes educational justice: not merely what we have long expected of public schools but whether and how they can be different.
Funding/Awards
National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Research Development Award
Seton Hall University Research Council
Fahs-Beck Fund for Social Research
National Academy of Education/Spencer Dissertation Fellowship