Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the Color Line in Classrooms and Communities (Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies)

Could your kids be learning a fourth "R" at school: reading, writing, rithmatic, and race? Race in the Schoolyard takes us to a place most of us seldom get to see in action-our children's classrooms-and reveals the lessons about race that are communicated there, both implicitly and explicitly. The book examines how ideas about race and racial inequality take shape and are passed along from teacher to student and from student to student in the classroom and schoolyard. Amanda E. Lewis spent a year observing classes at three elementary schools-two multiracial urban and one white suburban-where she spent time with school personnel, teachers, parents, and students. While race of course, is not officially taught like multiplication and punctuation, she finds that it nonetheless insinuates itself into everyday life in schools. Lewis explains how the curriculum, both expressed and hidden, conveys many racial lessons, and the ways schools and school personnel serve as a location and means for interracial interaction, as well as a means of both affirming and challenging previous racial attitudes and understanding. While teachers and other school community members verbally deny the salience of race, she illustrates how it does influence the way they understand the world, interact with each other, and teach children.