Leadership for Access and Equity in Education

Course Description

Every child living in America is legally guaranteed equal access to a free public education, and equal opportunity once enrolled. When the neighborhood where a student lives, their race, their primary spoken language, their (dis)abilities, and their socioeconomic class influence, if not dictate, where the student attends school, and the type and quality of education they receive, educational access cannot be considered equal. With educational access and opportunity correlated with life outcomes, there is a lot to lose for individuals, families, and society when students receive subpar schooling. Centering race, class, and power, students in this course will analyze the inequalities that exist in the American education system, will work to understand the origins of these inequalities and why they persist, and will interrogate the repercussions of unequal educational access and opportunity. Students will think critically about the contemporary state of American education.

Acknowledging that students in this course are experts on their own educational journey, they will be asked to bring their experiences and critiques to class in order to begin to question what it means to be a student in an education system. With public schools and private schools, charter schools and parochial schools, community schools and boarding schools, online schools and homeschools, students may have vastly different primary and secondary school experiences. This course will consider issues specific to public education including district takeovers by state governments, as is presently the case in Providence, wraparound services, and charter school lotteries. It will also move beyond the bounds of public education, and in the process will consider issues such as voucher programs or school choice, and the legacy of slavery and racial segregation in American educational systems and institutions, including at Brown.

We will consider issues common to most secondary school students, such as standardized testing and college entrance exams, and will investigate, for example, when, where, and why standardized testing originated, what its functionality is now, and its relationship to educational access. Beyond the interests of students and parents, students will question what other individuals and organizations have a stake in their education. Throughout the course, students will be introduced to activist efforts to both reform and re-imagine the education system, and challenge systematic and institutional dynamics that reproduce social inequalities. The material in this interdisciplinary course will draw from American studies, ethnic studies, media studies, education studies, and sociology.

Students will come away from this course with a greater understanding of the social stratifications that are present in society, and how these disparities and hierarchies are replicated and perpetuated in the American education system. Students will be able to explain why education for some leads to opportunity, while for others it serves as a space and process of closure. Ultimately, students will gain a new view of the education system that has shaped their lives, a system that shapes society more generally.

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This course is part of the Leadership Institute, a two-week academic program that helps students cultivate the knowledge, skills, and attitudes associated with effective and socially responsible leadership. This unique program consists of three integrated elements: academic content, leadership development, and the Action Plan. Our students are thoughtful and compassionate youth who are interested in social issues and creating positive change. Enrollment in this program requires several hours of online engagement prior to campus arrival. This online participation may be completed at any time where internet access is available. Once on campus, participants can look forward to full days in a community of engaged and curious learners.

Additional programmatic information may be found here.

Prerequisites: All students are welcome to join this course, regardless of whether they have been educated in the US or internationally.

Kayci Merritte is a PhD student and Presidential Fellow in the department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and a Master of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies from Rutgers University in Newark. Kayci’s academic work focuses on visual representations of violence, and the gap between the way violence is described versus the way it is seen. She is interested in how education as a highly visible space and system of hopeful futurity simultaneously reflects, manifests, and perpetuates some of the more visually subtle conflicts found in larger American society. Prior to beginning graduate school, Kayci worked with nonprofits that served minority communities in Israel, and worked in refugee resettlement in her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri.