Dr. Jared Clemons, Assistant Professor of Political Science, presents:

The Education Paradox: Explaining Educational Racial Inequalities.

Since the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century, scholars have sought to explain why educational racial inequalities remain intractable, despite numerous political efforts to address them. In this talk I argue that the primary cause of these racial inequalities is what I call the education paradox: a contradictory situation in which Americans expect the education system to produce both inequality (through credentialing and class stratification) and equality (vis-à-vis antiracist initiatives). Under a low-growth, austere capitalist regime, however, the education system can really only accomplish the former, leaving the racially unequal status quo intact. Couching the education paradox within a broader political-economic framework, I discuss how racial inequalities might be reduced given these conditions.