Race-Class Relations and Integration in Secondary Education The Case of Miller High

by Eick, Caroline

• ISBN13: 9780230107083
• ISBN10: 0230107087
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-10-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Eick explores the history of a comprehensive high school from the world views of its assorted student body, confronting issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender, nationality, and religion. Her case study examines the continuities and differences in student relationships over five decades. While she discusses the "dark side" of the high school experience, she also presents hopeful signs and alternatives. This history comes alive through rich oral testimonies that contribute to the ongoing search to make high school life a meaningful and constructive experience for young people living in an increasingly complex society.

Author Biography

Caroline Eick is Assistant Professor of Education at Mount St. Mary’s University. She received her Ph.D. (2005) in educational policy studies with specialization in history of education from the University of Maryland, and her undergraduate degree from McGill University in Montréal, Canada. Her present and forthcoming publications include: “Student Relationships across Markers of Difference in a Baltimore County, Maryland, Comprehensive High School, 1950-1969,” History of Education Quarterly 50 (2010); “Teachers as Cultural Mediators: A Comparison of the Accountability Era to the Assimilation Era. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 7 (2010): 54-77; and “Oral Histories of Education and the Relevance of Theory: Claiming New spaces in a Post-Revisionist Era,” Special Issue: “Theory in Educational History,” History of Education Quarterly 51 (2011). Dr. Eick’s research interests include: processes of integration post-desegregation, 1954-present; theory in educational history; immigrant students and youth involvement in social justice causes. She has recently developed a globalization and education course that incorporates an in-service trip to the Cameroon where teacher candidates help build a secondary school for girls under the auspices of Jacqueline Tchouassi, a Cameroonian native and founder of Aumazo, Inc., a non-profit organization whose goal is to develop educational opportunities for young women in rural Africa. Caroline is fluent in French, Croatian, and Spanish.

Table of Contents

PART I: THE DIVIDED GENERATION (1950-1969) * Memories of Class, Race, and Gender Divides: Immediate Pre and Post Desegregation Years * Cautiously Negotiating Social Divides: A Conservative Student Body * PART II: THE BORDER-CROSSING GENERATION (1970-1985) * Memories of Interracial Peer-Group Affiliations: Integration Years * Bridging Social Divides through Peer-Groups: A Socially Tolerant but Politically Inactive Student Body * PART III: THE RE-DIVIDED GENERATION (1986-2000) * Memories of Segregation by Class, Race, Nationality, and Religion: Destabilizing Years of Shifting Demographics * Self-Segregating in Opposition To: A Student Body Sensitized to Discrimination * Conclusion * Methodology: The Transparent Historian