Check out the latest issue of Critical Education, which includes Kelly Norris’ article “Meaningful Social Contact” as part of CE’s series “A Return to Educational Apartheid? Critical Examinations of Race, Schools, and Segregation”.
Critical Education
Vol 2, No 2 (2011)
Table of Contents
A Return to Educational Apartheid? Comments from the Series Co-Editor
Doug Selwyn
Abstract
Selwyn, co-editor of the “A Return to Educational Apartheid?” series, pays tribute to Critical Education Associate Editor Adam Renner and introduces the latest in a special series of articles focusing on the articulation of race, schools, and segregation. Each of the articles in this series analyzes the extent to which schooling may or may not be returning to a state of educational apartheid.
Meaningful Social Contact
Kelly Norris
Abstract
The resegregation of our schools presents a loss for many suburban students who now lack the ‘meaningful social contact’ that is necessary for successfully integrating into a multicultural society. What happens when white students are denied the opportunity to regularly connect with people of other races and backgrounds? What kind of thinking do we construct when we racially isolate our suburban students and how do we deconstruct that thinking so that they can become more tolerant, self-aware, liberated human beings? In this narrative essay, a teacher asks her suburban, mostly white students to examine their notions, experiences and identities regarding race through journaling and class discussion. A dynamic dialogue ensues and is shared, along with the author’s own journal responses to prompts about race, white identity and interracial relationships. What is revealed is the other side of the implications of resegregation.
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