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Educational Policy and Race

Policies are crucial for understanding the way that racial inequalities persist within contemporary society. Educational policies include those official and unofficial guidelines that are developed by policymakers, school administrators, and educators to influence the way that schools both directly and indirectly provide education to students. In the United States, these policies include a variety of state and federal laws and regulations that govern students’ pre-kindergarten, primary (K–8), and secondary schooling (high school), as well as policies affecting higher education (college and beyond). Scholars studying education show that examining how policies are created—who creates it and for what purpose—and also how the policy is put into practice at the state and district level is crucial for understanding inequalities. This entry focuses on K–12 educational policy and race in the United States. More specifically, the focus is primarily on influential policies in schools since the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision, with particular attention on two crucial types of race-based educational policy: desegregation and school choice programs. There are many other educational policies not addressed here that could be examined for their influence in racial schooling inequities. This piece focuses on K–12 educational policies, but policies related to race in pre-K as well as institutions of higher education are also areas in which educational policies are impacted by race relations. Examining those formal and informal guidelines for the way that they shape children’s schooling is crucial for understanding how racial inequalities persist within contemporary society. As a practice of power, education policy has the potential to be used as a tool for positive social change and disrupt white supremacy within the context of schooling. Yet doing so requires first recognizing the way that race and racism have been written into school policies.