Book review: Lawrence Blum and Zoë Burkholder, Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education

Abstract

Integrations is the latest volume in the History and Philosophy series from the University of Chicago Press. Lawrence Blum and Zoë Burkholder bring together historical and philosophical inquiry to examine the complex history and ongoing possibilities of school integration, that ‘most exalted and controversial ideal’ which many Americans have long ‘assumed to be [the] most obvious cure’ (pp. 3, 1) for racial inequality in education. In the past as in the present, parents and activists from various communities have defined integration – and thus assessed its desirability as a remedy for racial injustice – in disparate ways. Blum and Burkholder contend that a pluralist and egalitarian form of school integration remains a necessary foundation for civic education in a multiracial democracy. More broadly, they argue that educational and civic equality will remain elusive until the structures of racial and class injustice in American society are dismantled. The two opening chapters offer historical accounts of (a) how public schools have functioned as state-sponsored tools of white supremacy and (b) the concurrent and sustained efforts of communities of color to challenge educational racism. Drawing on the most recent scholarship, the authors consider the efforts of African American, Native American, Latinx, and Asian American communities in turn. Chapter 1, spanning the years between the foundation of American public school systems and the Brown decision in 1954, demonstrates how white officials discriminated against children of color by excluding them from public schools or segregating them in underfunded and dilapidated facilitates. White officials circumscribed the curricular programming available to children of color in many ways. Publicly funded Black schools in the South were required to follow a manual or industrial curriculum, government-run institutions for Native American children were instruments of cultural annihilation, and Mexican American students were prohibited from learning in Spanish under an aggressive Americanization program. Students, parents, and activists of color responded with direct attacks on racist policies through legal or diplomatic channels, overt resistance to white authorities, and measured accommodation. Importantly, many activists questioned the utility of racial 1090016 TRE0010.1177/14778785221090016Theory and Research in EducationBook review book-review2022