Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2016, Educational Leadership

Critical Race Theory challenges us to analyze a number of issues such as racial, gender, and class privileges within both formal and informal structures and processes of schooling. In addition, CRT reveals its direct implications for identifying and analyzing traditional notions of the objectivity of law and administrative regulation as it applies to education and schooling. Therefore, CRT in education can be defined as a framework or set of basic perspectives, methods, and pedagogy that seeks to identify, analyze and transform those structural, cultural, and interpersonal aspects of education that maintain the subordination of people of color and hopes to foster ways to engage in critical race analysis and positive change with regard to racial justice in the schools. One of the alleged benefits from Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas was to ensure that Black children would have equal access to the resources of their White counterparts. For the purposes of this study, CRT will be used in an attempt to take a critical look at the impact of achieving unitary status has had on the Rockford Public Schools This study investigates the impact of unitary status on the Rockford Public Schools, focusing specifically on changes that have taken the federal court's order releasing the school district from its earlier desegregation order. The major questions to be explored in this study include: A. What systemic changes have occurred within the Rockford School District as a result of being granted unitary status? B. What stories/experiences are Rockford residents telling about race, desegregation, and schooling? Although unitary status has been acquired, it is clear that much work remains to be done to heal this disjointed community. Revisiting this subject can be a powerfully important step in not only healing the wounds inflicted from this journey, but also provides valuable reflection of root causes for the internal conflict within the district. Th (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Denise Taliaferro-Baszile (Committee Chair); Michael Dantley (Committee Member); Lisa Weems (Committee Member); Sheri Leafgren (Committee Member) Subjects: African Americans; Education; Educational Leadership; School Administration