Condition or Process? Researching Race in Education

by Adrienne D. Dixon

By theorizing race, we can better understand the work of the racial project and how that project structures inequality throughout the education system. Race determines quality of and access to curriculum, academic tracks, special education, school funding, school disciplinary practices, and so forth. And it does this work without the overt intent of school professionals—despite their racial identities.

and we cannot recapture it and tuck it back into some neat container. It has contaminated our entire culture, and we struggle to free ourselves from it as it changes, multiplies, and mutates with every new generation.

Race is deeply woven into the nation’s fabric in ways that make it nearly impossible to unravel without tearing the whole society asunder.