Structure - Todd

I especially enjoyed how Lewis maintained a consistent structure with the research she conducted in each of the three schools.  Each chapter title contained a theme that she ascribed to each school.  For example, the chapter of  the school named Foresthills was, ‘There is no “race” in the schoolyard, color-blind ideology at Foresthills’.  Great detail was giving to the structure of the school itself including physical features, the teachers and staff, and students.  The subheading, “Classroom”, provided more information about the classroom environment.  Data about the surrounding community added more context to the school environment.  Whitney Young Elementary School for instance, was situated in an all white neighborhood, but the school population was comprised mostly of African Americans and Latinos.  This information was significant in her analysis of the school’s approach to racial issues.  Next, was the collection of data, which included her conversations and observations of teachers, staff, and students.  Lewis concluded each chapter of the three schools with a summary of the information collected, her insights about the school’s culture regarding the racialization process.  Analysis of the data she collected through observations, interviews, and documents collected concluded each chapter. 

 

There were sub-headings in each chapter that contained her views on how theories connected to the each school’s context from interviews and observations conducted.  In the chapter on Whitney Young Elementary, she writes under the sub-heading, “Silence on Race” about race being a taboo topic in desegregated school according to Schofield and Wells, and Crain (pg. 110).  Although teachers and other staff realize conflict occurs between students is based on race, they choose not to discuss it.

I think that Lewis’ decision to organize her chapters on data collection and analysis by each school she selected for her study made for a more organized, readable dissertation.  If each chapter was organized by theory instead, it would cause great confusion in trying to recall each school’s setting and its relation to the stated theoretical concept.  The chapter titles also served as a primer to how she assessed each school’s process of racialization.  For example, the chapter for research at a Metro2, a Spanish immersion school, is titled “New Forms, Old Outcomes?: Race Culture, Language, and Power at Metro2, indicates that she will proffer the connection between her data (albeit in contrast to the other schools), and the same results shared with the other schools – an unhealthy culture for student to shape their own and other’s racial identities.

Following the chapters on the three schools Lewis studied for her research, are two final chapters.  The first of the two chapters delves more into the racialization process that occurs at school.  She illustrates through text from her interviews the theories racial ascription, signification, and racialization (as described in a section of the paper).  Exclusion of opportunities or association with certain categories is a result of ascription.  In demonstrating this viewpoint, it was interesting reading the interview Lewis had with a Latina parent from Whitney Young.  She did not have an issue with cleaning the houses of white people, but experienced “dissonance” (pg. 227) when providing the same service to a Black family. 

The last chapter of the dissertation was not in exact alignment with the overall theme of racialization.  In this section of the dissertation, Lewis explored the importance of social, cultural, and symbolic capital in the reproduction of racial inequalities in education.  From the perspective of institutional ethnography, I understand the significance of including the final chapter in the dissertation as this reinforces the them of this research method (relationship among various processes and systems to produce and retain power).  I still view this chapter as not being related to the other chapters of this dissertation in explaining how perspectives of race are developed and used through the school setting.