ABSTRACT
In the 1960s, soeial disadvantage due to soeial dass and compounded by ethnieity, which brought with it ahistory of assimilation and culturallegitimization issues, found native/indigenous people of North America in a position where they had little capaeity to take advantage of the fruits of equity or choice. One might argue that the market-liberal utilitarian procedural polieies of the times, which sought to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number, defined education as a commodity delivered through a uniform pedagogy. The soeial outcome, therefore, was that those who had the advantage (dass, race/ethnieity, gender, and language) acquired the benefits and the choice, and those who had less soeial capital did not. In the end, disproportionate acquisition of resources brought about by educational polices grounded in choice and effieiency dismissed the prineiples of soeial justice and equity (for more on this topic, see Benharn & Heck, 1998).
