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5 “In the Spirit of Equality” Conflict, Dissonance, and the Potential for Transformative Educational Change ANNE GALLETTA Any meaningful and reasonable permanent solution must involve a coming together of the entire city in a spirit of equality. —Moreland Parent Committee, February 8, 1970 T his chapter explores the history of school desegregation in Shaker Heights, Ohio, an inner-ring suburban school district bordering the city of Cleveland . During particular periods of community conflict and institutional unease, parents, students, and educators pressed their school district to attend to racial isolation and inequality of opportunity and outcomes for African American students. Additionally, student narratives of psychological dissonance raised questions about the role of the institution and the broader social context contributing to these inequalities. Given the influence of psychological conflict on an individual’s understanding of racial inequality, what role might institutional conflict play in creating possibilities for systemic change? The purpose of this chapter is to extend the study of individual psychological dissonance to the institutional level of analysis within the context of suburban school desegregation. To what extent does institutional conflict provide possibilities for change in the same manner that psychological conflict creates change at the individual level? Shaker Heights, an inner-ring suburb of approximately 28,500, was established as a village in 1911 and as a city in 1931 (Shaker Historical Society 2012). Historically an exclusive setting, this planned community used restrictive covenants until they were struck down in the courts in 1948. In the late 1950s, community efforts to racially integrate neighborhoods and stem white flight at Shaker’s western border with Cleveland were successful (Weeks 1968). Later replication of these strategies across the city was uneven in its effectiveness. Local efforts to achieve racial balance in the school system began in the mid1960s . Today, the school system is racially and economically diverse, although many of the neighborhoods in Shaker Heights continue to be predominantly white or black. According to state data, the school system enrolled 5,388 students in the 2010–2011 school year, of whom 51.2 percent were black, 4.2 percent 74 Anne Galletta were Asian or Pacific Islander, 1.7 percent were Hispanic, 6 percent were multiracial , and 36.9 percent were white. Within the district enrollment, 31.6 percent of the students were economically disadvantaged (Ohio Department of Education 2011). As part of this book’s exploration of diversity in relation to suburban history , politics, and future prospects, it is useful to look closely at the history of one suburb as it desegregated its schools. Tensions within the school system and its community reflect broader patterns evident across the country. Suburban residents, living in communities once defined by exclusion, have been increasingly drawn into conflict as efforts to undermine exclusion bump up against long-standing structures of privilege. In the following section, I review the literature , particularly as it relates to school desegregation and the potential role of conflict in disentangling privilege and exclusion and reducing the interdependence of these phenomena within educational policy and practice. In the remaining sections, I outline findings from my study of the district’s desegregation , drawing from an analysis of student narratives on their experiences and conceptualizations of racial equality and an examination of three particular junctures in the district’s history (Galletta 2003). Literature Review Important dimensions should be considered in the study of school desegregation , particularly in suburban districts rooted in histories of racial exclusion. A review of the literature reveals how school desegregation efforts over time contributed to long-term opportunities and positive economic outcomes for black students (Holme, Wells, and Revilla 2005; Mickelson 2001; G. Orfield 1978; G. Orfield and Eaton 1996; G. Orfield and Gordon 2001; Wells and Crain 1994, 1997). In addition, schools with diverse student bodies offer their students an opportunity to gain cultural fluency (Glazier 2003) and to understand deeply the experience of diversity (Fine et al. 2000; Wells et al. 2009). Effectively attending to equality of opportunity and outcomes in desegregated settings remains a persistent challenge (Galletta and Cross 2007; Lit 2009; Mickelson 2001; Noguera and Wing 2006), and most schools continue to struggle with reducing the gap in opportunities and outcomes between students of color and white students (Ferguson 2001). Although considerable evidence supports the benefits of desegregation, relational and structural conditions within schools, further shaped by history, impinge upon school systems’ efforts to address inequalities in educational opportunity, academic outcomes, and relations of power. Drawing from the social-psychological literature, it is useful to...

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