ABSTRACT
I have not assigned my classes The Autobiography of Malcolm X for many years, yet I often anecdotally draw on it in the graduate courses in education I currently teach. Nearly all of my students are white and pedagogically progressive. Critical of standardized tests and tracking, they tend to be partial to whole language, authentic assessment, inclusion, and some conception of multiculturalism. Despite a nearly universal affirmation of the latter, many view the extant inequalities in the postsegregation era as the result of individual inadequacies rooted in perceived cultural limitations of groups. Along with many academics and policy-makers, they assume that the abolition of legal discrimination has engendered equality of educational opportunity.
