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Literacy and Racial Justice: The Politics of Learning after Brown v. Board of Education
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2004
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Critical Race TheoryBrown V. BoardEducational SegregationMulticultural EducationRace LawLawEducationRacial StudyBrown DecisionRacial Segregation StudiesBlack Feminist ThoughtRaceContemporary RacismAfrican American EducationWhite SupremacyLandmark BrownEducation LawAfrican American StudiesCivil RightsRacismLiteracy PracticeRacial EquityIntersectionalityRacial JusticeLiteracy LearningHistory Of EducationBlack PoliticsRacial ViolenceLiteracyLiteracy Racial JusticeEducation PolicyRace RelationSocial Justice
Brown v. Board of Education and subsequent civil‑rights rulings have embedded literacy within the national discourse on racial justice, making the two inseparable in contemporary debates. The study seeks to demonstrate that literacy remains a white‑owned construct that perpetuates inequity and to propose a reimagined, justice‑oriented literacy model. The author analyzes civil‑rights era Supreme Court rulings and immigration cases, builds on Heath’s work, and conducts a naturalistic study of an alternative public secondary school to illustrate the persistence of white‑owned literacy.
In anticipation of the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark Brown of Education decision, Catherine Prendergast draws on a combination of insights from legal studies literacy studies to interrogate contemporary multicultural literacy initiatives, thus providing a sound historical basis that informs current debates over affirmative action, school vouchers, reparations, high-stakes standardized testing.As a result of Brown and subsequent crucial civil rights court cases, literacy racial justice are firmly enmeshed in the American imaginationso much so that it is difficult to discuss one without referencing the other. Breaking with the accepted wisdom that the Brown decision was an unambiguous victory for the betterment of race relations, Literacy Racial Justice: The Politics of Learning after Brown v. Board of Education finds that the ruling reinforced traditional conceptions of literacy as primarily white property to be controlled disseminated by an empowered majority. Prendergast examines civil rights era Supreme Court rulings immigration cases spanning a century of racial injustice to challenge the myth of assimilation through literacy. Advancing from Ways with Words, Shirley Brice Heath s landmark study of desegregated communities, Prendergast argues that it is a shared understanding of literacy as white property which continues to impact problematic classroom dynamics education practices.To offer a positive model for reimagining literacy instruction that is truly in the service of racial justice, Prendergast presents a naturalistic study of an alternative public secondary school. Outlining new directions priorities for inclusive literacy scholarship in America, Literacy Racial Justice concludes that a literate citizen is one who can engage rather than overlook longstanding legacies of racial strife.