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Article Excerpt
Race and socioeconomic status gaps in children's academic achievement are a troubling social justice issue, both because of the serious long-term social and economic consequences, and because despite decades of research and efforts at reform, these gaps have proven quite robust (Braun,Wang, Jenkins, & Weinbaum, 2006). Achievement gaps are a particularly critical social work issue in the American South--an area characterized by high levels of poverty (Rural Poverty Research Institute, 2001), a large black population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001), generally poor performance in most domains of educational quality (Creech, 2000; Lord, 2003), and a weak system of services and supports to shore up family well-being for those who are left behind in school (Rural Poverty Research Institute).
Although there is general agreement on the seriousness of the achievement gap, there is no consensus on its causes or solutions. Some research suggests that children who attend predominantly ethnic minority or predominantly poor schools are at an academic disadvantage because of the contextual effects of social segregation (Bankston & Caldas, 1998; Entwisle & Alexander, 1992; Reardon, 2003). Other studies note the significant problems associated with persistent and severe disparities that affect the quality and resources of schools serving disadvantaged groups of students (Biddle & Berliner, 2003). A third direction of scholarship reflects a suspicion that differences in culture and family structure may be to blame for the lower school success of poor and ethnic minority youths (Murray, 1994). Assessing these differing explanations in light of social work's professional knowledge base and values is important for informing practice and policy efforts to improve the well-being and life opportunities of vulnerable children. Specifically, social work's commitment to social justice, and its conceptualization of individual functioning as intertwined with social and structural context provide an important framework for understanding and responding to achievement gaps. Toward that end, this article examines the contexts of and influences on achievement within public schools in the American South. We aim both to understand southern achievement gaps in terms of the particular educational and sociocultural context of the region and to explore the practice and policy implications of responding to achievement gaps within a social justice framework.
EDUCATION, MOBILITY, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
Education is traditionally viewed as a leveler of opportunity. In a free and public education system, children of all backgrounds can theoretically achieve any adult status by seizing opportunities available to all and excelling based on their merit and effort (Stanton-Salazar & Dornbusch, 1995). In an unequal society with a highly residual social welfare system, however, the actual possibility of mobility through education is central to social justice efforts, creating a critical pathway to opportunity for children born into poor families and those whose families are marginalized because of racial discrimination. Problematically, a significant body of research suggests that schooling in the United States does not lead to an equalization of resources, skills, or opportunities (Braswell et al., 2001; Ferguson, 1998; Miller-Cribbs, Cronen, Davis, & Johnson, 2002). In fact, the school achievement gap between poor and nonpoor children is troublingly high (Braswell et al., 2001). Given the race-poverty overlap, it is not surprising that the poverty gap coexists with a race gap in student achievement (Jencks & Phillips, 1998).
Some scholars conceptualize achievement gaps in terms of cultural or attitudinal differences (Murray, 1994; Ogbu, 1986). For example, Murray attributed black youths' declining educational outcomes to cultural adaptations to changing incentive structures. Describing recent social policy as removing disincentives to crime, nonmarital childbearing, and welfare participation, Murray concluded that an ensuing "culture of poverty" inhibits academic success in ethnic minority communities. With a related logic, Ogbu noted an "oppositional culture" of black youths who react against mainstream expectations and disengage from school because they fear being accused of "acting white" and because they do not perceive the benefits of education. From this perspective, youths choose not to succeed in school when they are surrounded by a culture that stigmatizes achievement and when there are few material rewards to outweigh the costs of such stigma.
Other scholars agree that there are cultural dynamics involved in sustaining achievement gaps, but they focus more on the structural conditions in which local cultural norms become both necessary and logical. As Mickelson (1990) noted, "the material realities experienced by black youths challenge the rhetoric of the American Dream ... the myth that education equals opportunity for all" (p. 59). Likewise, Loury (1977) argued that structural disadvantage, in the form of inherited material and social marginalization, constrains what ethnic minority youths can achieve through equal opportunity educational programs. These constraints limit the supports, opportunities, and resources that parents from ethnic minority groups can deploy on their children's behalf. Wilson (1987) described the broad demographic and residential shifts that have isolated some ethnic minority youths in neighborhoods where few adults are employed and few parents have finished school or married before having children. This social isolation, Wilson claimed, is a significant structural barrier to academic success.
In a related vein of scholarship, some studies have focused more on the quality and value of day-to-day experiences of relationship available to youths in isolated ethnic minority or poverty milieus. Studies by Stanton-Salazar and Dornbusch (1995) and Fernandez-Kelly (1994) both found that a lack of opportunities for mentorship, relationship, support, or information from more privileged social ties forecloses many options for poor ethnic minority youths, leaving high rates of school failure and early childbearing as sadly predictable outcomes. Similarly, studies addressing peer-group effects explore the idea that a child's social ties in school influence his or her individual learning (Bankston & Caldas, 1998; Hoxby, 2000; Reardon, 2003). These studies consistently find that having a higher proportion of ethnic minority or low-income children in a school is correlated with lower levels of individual student achievement. However, such peer group effects may be expressions of culture of poverty dynamics if child and family risk factors accumulate at the school level due to residential segregation. From a social justice perspective, we note that even "cultural" processes may ultimately reflect structural causes to the degree that an individual's choices, beliefs, values, and behaviors are shaped by unequal access to resources and opportunities, institutional oppression, and processes of marginalization. One such structural cause is the quality of education itself.
Different and Unequal-Quality Explanations
Dramatic differences in school quality are well documented, from Kozol's (1991) description of the deplorable conditions in East St. Louis to the "Corridor of Shame" depicted by Ferillo (2005) in a film documenting the inability of impoverished schools in rural South Carolina to provide even a "minimally adequate" education. But in addition to the types of obvious differences noted by Kozol and Ferillo, educational quality reflects a range of more subtle processes, experiences, and opportunities at the nexus of school and classroom environment. Within classrooms, educational quality depends on several factors: the particular qualities and attributes of the teacher, the social and physical context in which learning unfolds, and the...
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