The Role of Schools in Educating Black Citizens: From the 1800s to the Present

Abstract

Participatory citizenship among Black citizens in the United States has always been tied to access to quality education. In this literature review, I draw on scholarship analyzing the experiences of Black youth in the 19th, 20th, and early 21st centuries. I compare the historic and contemporary challenges facing Black citizens’ active participation in democratic processes and discuss how schools have the potential to create, or hinder, the road to active citizenship. I use Critical Race Theory as a theoretical model to explore the role that race plays in educating youth for citizenship. Collectively, the reviewed studies reveal that access to high-quality education was and is still determined by one’s race and affects many Black citizens’ ability to participate in democracy.

Keywords:

• Black/African American education
• civic/citizenship education
• Critical Race Theory
• history of social studies education
• political socialization

Notes

¹ I use “Black” to refer to the people of African descent who live in the United States. I intentionally selected this word because unlike Negro, Colored, and African American, Black is a word that transcends historical periods and has referenced the same people across time. Furthermore, it connects Black Americans to the national experience as equally beholden to the past and future of the United States as White Americans (who are not generally referenced as European Americans). They are not hyphenated Americans, but are fully American citizens who have a unique experience.

² The number of people disenfranchised due to a felony conviction has escalated dramatically in recent decades. There were an estimated 1.17 million people disenfranchised in 1976, 3.34 million in 1996, and over 5.85 million in 2010. Southern states have the highest rates of voter disenfranchisement resulting from incarceration (Uggen & Shannon, 2012).

³ Zero tolerance is a school policy that favors strict imposition of penalties, regardless of the circumstances of each case. Such policies have resulted in the increase of suspension and expulsion rates in schools throughout the nation, particularly in urban schools (Gregory et al., 2010).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Adrianne R. Pinkney

ADRIANNE R. PINKNEY is a Graduate Student in the Division of Educational Studies at Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322. She can be contacted at adrianne. [email protected].