Content area
Full Text
In 1970 the Harvard Educational Review published an article by Ray Rist that described how, for the one class of children he observed, their public school not only mirrored the class system of the larger society but also actively contributed to maintaining it. Now, thirty years later, the Editorial Board of the Harvard Educational Review has decided to reprint this article as part of the HER Classics Series. We hope that by reacquainting readers with this article, and by introducing it to new readers, we can encourage all of us to think about the work that remains in creating a just and equitable educational experience for all children.
Author's Introduction: The Enduring Dilemmas of Class and Color in American Education
RAY C. RIST
World Bank, Washington, DC
When asked by the editors of the Harvard Educational Review to prepare this short note as the introduction to the reprint of my 1970 article, my first reaction was that it cannot already be thirty years since the publication of "Student Social Class and Teacher Expectations." But it is, and thus I offer these brief observations on three areas germane to this piece: the state of urban education then and now; the qualitative research methods used then and now, especially the "insider-outsider" issue of myself as a White person doing research in the African American community;, and, finally. several personal reflections.
The State of Urban Education
Raising this issue with a thirty-year retrospective is almost to enter a time warp. So much of what was the reality of the education of Black youth thirty years ago is no different today. Urban schools so often did not do well by their charges then, and in many ways, they still do not do so. Schools are still facing many of the same issues now as they did then. It would not be misleading, to paraphrase an old cliche, to say that the more time passes, the more things stay the same.
Intersecting with the highly visible and flammable issues in urban education of violence, drugs, academic failure, and collapsing infrastructures are the twin pivots of class and color. When I titled the original article, I emphasized the matter of student social class. I did so because the classrooms, the...