ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we explore why unequal patterns of school opportunities and outcomes seem so normal and inevitable. Looking through the lenses of history and social theory, we discuss how events and ideologies that shape our national character also shape schools and classrooms. The chapter includes a brief outline of important events in the history of U.S. schooling; a sketch of how expectations for schools have increased over the past two-hundred-plus years; a discussion of two influential and deeply held, if mostly unconscious, cultural assumptions-meritocracy and racial superiority; and examples of educators who, like Kimberly Min, are struggling against the history and culture that constrain teaching and learning in today’s schools.
