2014 - Is Integration a Dream Deferred? Students of Color in Majority White Suburban Schools

Although Brown altered the racial composition of schools, it left adult dispositions toward students of color intact.

Students’ relationships with their teachers at the middle school level directly impact their opportunities to access rigorous coursework in high school.

Teacher-student relationships impact student connectedness with the school, students’ course accessibility in high school, and their future college options due to the courses listed on their transcripts.

Counselors’ low expectations are evident in the students’ discussions of college choices.

Many of the student’s state that their guidance counselors recommend technical schools or open admission colleges instead of competitive four-year institutions.

Students of color recognize the disparity in counseling between students of color and White students. When the students compare their academic planning meetings to those of their White peers, they realize that the White students are encouraged to apply to four-year universities and Ivy League schools. Counselors rarely encourage students of color to apply to selective schools or seek scholarships and grants to supplement college costs. Students of color who perceive their counselors to have low expectations for them are less likely to visit their counselors and seek information. Therefore, the academic pathways to college for students of color and White students look very different

Teachers and counselors continue to set low expectations for students of color and interact with students in ways that reassert deficit notions of students of color. These interactions define rigorous curricular spaces as the privilege and property of White students; in these spaces students of color are viewed as unwelcome guests or interlopers.