Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2020, Educational Theory and Social Foundations

The purpose of this oral history is to document the lived experience of the learning environment of African American students and culturally specific practices of African American teachers who taught in the legally segregated Louisvlle Central High School. Historically, segregated African American schools have been depicted as inferior educational institutions. By offering a counter-narrative of educational success within a segment of the African American community in the Jim Crow South the central thesis of this oral history is a counter-narrative to the suppositions of cultural deficit as the primary theory explaining the achievement gap between the majority population and minorites. By exploring the lived experience of the characteristics of the school culture and environment and the characteristics of those responsible for teaching, this oral history adds to the body of literature which shows that the achievement gap cannot be adequately explained by reference to cultural deficit. Moreover, the counter-narrative points toward significant issues pertaining to education and justice. As a legal, constitutional matter by legally denying free and equal access to public institutions and the public sphere de jure segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and was thereby unconstitutional. In striking down legal segregation Brown established an equal civil right to equal access and thus formal equality of opportunity. As an educational matter (as opposed to a strictly constitutional one), however, the findings of this oral history, that the educational environment of Louisville Central High School was not culturally and educationally deprived, suggests that the quality and effectiveness of education is a matter that is independent of the strictly legal matter of the right to formal equality of opportunity as equal access. While being of the greatest significance for a democratic and just society, the civil right to free and equal acces (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dale Snauwaert (Committee Chair); Edward Janak (Committee Member); Vicki Dagostino (Committee Member); Fuad Al-Daraweesh (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; American History; Education History; Educational Sociology; Teacher Education