Integrating Schools in a Changing Society

As a result of tremendous social, legal, and political movements after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, the South led the nation in school desegregation from the late 1960s through the beginning of the twenty-first century. However, following a series of court cases in the past two decades--including a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision that raised potentially strong barriers for districts wishing to pursue integration--public schools in the South and across the nation are now resegregating faster than ever.

In this comprehensive volume, a roster of leading scholars in educational policy and related fields offer eighteen essays seeking to illuminate new ways for American public education to counter persistent racial and socioeconomic inequality in our society. Drawing on extensive research, the contributors reinforce the key benefits of racially integrated schools, examine remaining options to pursue multiracial integration, and discuss case examples that suggest how to build support for those efforts. Framed by the editors' introduction and a conclusion by Gary Orfield, these essays engage the heated debates over school reform and advance new arguments about the dangers of resegregation while offering practical, research-grounded solutions to one of the most pressing issues in American education.

The contributors are:
Courtney Bell, Educational Testing Service
Robert Bifulco, Syracuse University
John Charles Boger, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Casey D. Cobb, University of Connecticut
Elizabeth DeBray, University of Georgia
Sarah L. Diem, University of Missouri
Jacquelyn Duran, Columbia University
Erica Frankenberg, Pennsylvania State University
Patricia Gandara, University of California, Los Angeles
Ellen Goldring, Vanderbilt University
Willis D. Hawley, Univer¬sity of Maryland
Jennifer Jellison Holme, University of Texas at Austin
Eric A. Houck, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Jacqueline Jordan Irvine, Emory University
Richard D. Kahlenberg, The Century Foundation
Chinh Q. Le, New Jersey Division on Civil Rights
Katherine Cumings Mansfield, University of Texas at Austin
Gary Orfield, University of California, Los Angeles
Myron Orfield, University of Minnesota
Douglas D. Ready, Columbia University
Sean F. Reardon, Stanford University
Lori Rhodes, Stanford University
Janelle Scott, University of California, Berkeley
Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, University of California, Los Angeles
Megan R. Silander, Columbia University
Claire Smrekar, Vanderbilt University
Amy Stuart Wells, Columbia University
Sheneka Williams, University of Georgia
Terrenda White, Columbia University