Race talk and “structural displacement” of African American students in a small urban school district in the Midwest

I examine the race talk dilemmas of school officials in public school meetings over a 20 year period to attempt to understand why racialized policies and practices still persist against African American students at Blakesdale School District. The research provides insight into the inner workings of beliefs and values of educational leaders at Blakesdale regarding issues of desegregation, equity, and diversity with a hope that the findings in this study could offer empirical strategies for school improvement through racial harmony. The study also seeks to contribute to the body of literature on the value of integration in public schools and how it can enhance the experiences of marginalized groups within the education system in the United States. My analysis is a structural approach that calls for more progressive way of thinking about public schooling from the bottom up. This study is a critical ethnography used to investigate the impact of race talk on education policymaking structurally at the local school district level. I examine the ways in which structural intersectionality and race talk dilemmas reveal the systemic operationalization of whiteness in education policy and the ways in which education policies are used to carry out social injustices discursively among vulnerable groups in public school systems. This study is situated at the intersection of education policy and society. The three questions that guide this study are 1) What ways did school officials’ public discourse about student achievement and disciplinary disparities suggest the need for changes in the school culture and building equity in Blakesdale school district?; 2) What systems of meaning about low-income and minority students are revealed through public discourses at school and district public meetings?; and 3) How did the race talk of school officials preserve disparate disciplinary and academic practices at Blakesdale?U of I OnlyAuthor requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD syste