Educational Research educational disparities

What will you do / write about?

My topic will discuss the drivers and influences of educational disparities around races in America. The topic will focus heavily on education inequality, how it occurred, and what are the major influences behind. The topic will begin with a basic overarching view of the history of education as practiced in America. It will then transition in to the discrepancies that occurred primarily in the 20th century and analysis of the causes of these discrepancies. The topic will then transition into education as currently practices in America, its benefits and its weaknesses. The topic will then conclude with formal solutions backed by peer reviewed articles on methods to rectify the current racial and socio-economic imbalance in education.

Who will you interview? If you plan to interview

I plan on interviewing teachers who are currently practicing with my current area. I will also look to gain perspective from a litany of different sources to either validate of disprove my initial hypothesis regarding education inequality in America. I am particularly interested in interviewing minority teachers to obtain a very diversified approach to education, its impact on minorities and many of the factors that influence these outcomes.

What readings from class will you draw on to analyze your data?

There are many readings from the class that I draw on to analyze my data. The list of readings are as follows:

1. Anderson, J. D. (1988). The education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935. Univ of North Carolina Press

2. Bonilla-Silva, E. (2006). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

3. Driver, J. (2018). The schoolhouse gate: Public education, the Supreme Court, and the battle for the American mind. New York: Pantheon.

4. Picower, B. (2021). Reading, writing, and racism: Disrupting whiteness in teacher education and in the classroom. Beacon Press.

5. Ravitch, D. (2016). The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education. New York: Basic Books.

Each of these readings are unique in that they provide a unique perspective on education, its outcomes, and the influences. In addition, the reading can provide a unique perspective on racial connotations, policies, and stereotypes and how they impacted educational outcomes. The data will be useful to inform my hypothesis related to educational outcomes and disparities by race in America. In particularly, I am heavily interested in disconfirming evidence that runs counter to popular opinion. Here, many pundits site lack of financial resources, low socio-economic status, broken families, lack of education from parents, stereotypes, and the media and some of the causes of educational inequality we see in the nation today. I am interested in evidence that does not validate these assumptions as it makes my research topic much more reliable and unbiased.

How will you use them?

As stated earlier, I will use the data to analyze common issues related to education inequality within America. I will use the data to provide fact-based, peer-reviewed evidence as oppose to simply personal opinion. To be balances, I will utilize a large portion of my time to find disconfirming evidence related to the prevailing thought processes related to educational inequality.