Lisa M. Stulberg

The Origins of Race-conscious Affirmative Action in Undergraduate Admissions: A Comparative Analysis of Institutional Change in Higher Education

What explains the rise of race-conscious affirmative action policies in undergraduate admissions? The dominant theory posits that adoption of such policies was precipitated by urban and campus unrest in the North during the late 1960s. Based on primary research in a sample of 17 selective schools, we find limited support for the dominant theory. Affirmative action arose in two distinct waves during the 1960s. A first wave was launched in the early 1960s by northern college administrators inspired by nonviolent civil rights protests in the South. A second wave of affirmative action emerged in the late 1960s, primarily as a response to campus-based student protests. Most late-adopting schools were those most favored by the Protestant upper class. Our findings are most consistent with a theoretical perspective on institutional change in which social movements’ effects are mediated by the moral and ideological beliefs of key administrators.

School Choice Discourse and the Legacy of Brown

ABSTRACT Fifty years after the Browndecision, and in the context of persistent racial and economic segregation and inequality in schooling, it is still important to examine Browns legacy. In this focus on school choice, the rhetoric and the ways in which the legacy of Brownhas been emphatically invoked in charter school and voucher debates is studied. Four ways in which Brownis currently raised in school choice debates are identified. Through an examination of these four narratives, the ways in which the school choice debate provides a current, active space for the rethinking of the civil rights movement and its symbols, goals, and legacies are examined.

Charter Schooling, Race Politics, and an Appeal to History

Through a discussion of the current race politics of charter schooling and a brief, empirical examination of a community-based charter school that I helped to found in California, the public school community control movement in New York City in the late 1960s, and the African American independent school movement and the Council of Independent Black Institutions (CIBI) in the 1970s, I argue that a full understanding of the race politics of charter schooling requires a look at the historical roots of African American school choice. I find that history helps us better understand the complex dynamics of race and school choice. We can understand that African American parent and educator commitment to desegregated schooling is complex and certainly not unwavering; that the distinction between public and private in public education is quite murky; that the definition of community for purposes of building schools is complicated; and that strange bedfellows in African American education are nothing new. I appeal to the history of African American school choice to complicate the current public and scholarly debate on race and charter schooling.

School Choice and School Governance: a Historical Study of the United States and Germany ‐ by Jurgen Herbst

School Choice and School Governance: a Historical Study of the United States and Germany. By Jurgen Herbst. Pp. 207. New York and Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan. 2006. £42. ISBN: 1-4039-7302-4.