Rethinking Liberal and Radical Perspectives on Racial Inequality in Schooling: Making the Case for Nonsynchrony

Abstract

Cameron McCarthy analyzes the mainstream and neo-Marxist explanations of racial inequality in schools. He argues that the theoretical stance of the former depicts racial factors as manipulable variables tied to beliefs, values, and psychological differences; the latter position subsumes issues of race relations into socioeconomic interests. As an alternative frame-work the author presents a nonsynchronous theory of schooling that begins to explain the interaction of race, gender, and class within the economic, political, and social environments as they differentially function within the daily practices of schooling.