The circle of racial segregation in schools has completed itself based on the more recent Supreme Court cases pervasively weakening the welfare of African-American and other students of color as regards an appropriate education. The tenor of the federal courts, though at one ten year period in the 1960's and 1970's serving as a champion of equal…

Actually, the "Brown v. Board of Education" decision of the U.S. Supreme Court descended upon this nation as a way of checking the pervasive injustice rendered by public educational institutions on people of color, particularly African Americans. The injustices resulted from laws, regulations and other public policies promulgated or…

This paper provides a background to recent developments in language planning in South Africa. Following a historical review, it focuses on a Bill of Rights in the new constitution which has, since 1993, demanded a shift towards rights-based language policy within a liberal framework. Debates within the Pan South African Language Board (PANSALB)…

The concept of anomie is one of the classics of sociological theory. Developed by scholars such as Emile Durkheim and Robert K. Merton, the concept refers to the absence of clear social norms and values and to a lack of sense of social regulation. However, whereas Merton focused on features of relative deprivation that cause anomie, Durkheim was…

American schools, resegregating gradually for almost two decades, are now experiencing accelerating isolation and this will doubtless be intensified by the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. In June 2007, the Supreme Court handed down its first major decision on school desegregation in 12 years in the Louisville and Seattle cases. A…

The history of the public schooling of African Americans during legalized segregation has focused almost exclusively on the inferior education that African American students received. In the national memory, African Americans have been victims of Whites who questioned the utility of providing Blacks with anything more than a rudimentary education…

The effectiveness of magnet schools in providing racially balanced learning environments for students and the overall quality of the education they provide were studied in an investigation of 11 magnet school campuses in Federal Region F, which includes Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Sites included three elementary schools,…

Two workshops on rural education held at Highlander Research and Education Center brought together grassroots community activists, parents, teachers, and students from rural communities in Appalachia, the southeast, and 15 states east of Mississippi. The participants represented the experiences of white Appalachians, African-Americans, Native…

This paper summarizes what can be surmised about the nature and causes of persistent poverty and how it affects Hispanics, especially Chicanos. Section 1, "Persistent Poverty among Urban Minorities: A Review of the Literature," reviews the overall literature on the subject. Both documentary literature describing persistent poverty and…

A review of the literature on residential segregation reveals that Blacks remain the most segregated group in American cities, despite the more recent arrival of Hispanic and Asian groups. By one measure--the index of dissimilarity with respect to Whites--Blacks are 1.6 times more segregated than Hispanics, and twice as segregated as Asians. Race…

This paper reviews the current state of knowledge on desegregation in the nation's schools. It discusses justifications for and definitions of desegregation. It attempts to answer the following questions: What progress has been attained in the desegregation of schools? What have been the consequences? Which practices have been successful? What…

Intended to raise race and sex compliance issues to be addressed by the National Institute of Education (NIE) in its congressionally mandated study of vocational education, this paper defines Title VI (Civil Rights Act of 1964) and Title IX (Education Amendments of 1972) compliance issues regarding the level of minority (black Americans) and women…

Synthesized in this report are the findings of a study which focused on the effectiveness of the Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA) program at the Federal level in achieving two major outcomes: (1) targeting, or focusing, of ESAA grants and grant funds on school districts currently having the greatest desegregation related needs; and (2) funding…

This evaluation of the Emergency School Aid Act (ESAA) Program in the District of Columbia public schools addresses four general issues: (1) the extent to which the program was implemented as planned; (2) the extent of participation by identified target populations; (3) assessments of the program by participating professional and other adult…

This report contains transcripts of speeches given at the Amistad Symposium by lawyers, judges, and others active in the civil rights movement since the 1960s. Speakers include Clifton Johnson, J. Skelly Wright, John P. Nelson, Edwin King, Fred L. Banks, Jr., Lawrence A. Aschenbrenner, Frank R. Parker, Henry Schwarzschild, and Richard B. Sobol.…