The Complexities of Meritocracy in American Education
This research examined how the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education affected the concept of meritocracy in American education. Specifically, this research examined how the idea of meritocracy changed educational outcomes for students of diverse socio-economic and racial backgrounds in post-Brown America. Through analyzing the current ideas and critiques of meritocracy in education, the groundbreaking court case, and its critiques, a new assessment of the idea of meritocracy occurred. Before the analysis was made, the researcher hypothesized that Brown helped in creating a critical critique of meritocracy; however, the case was not sufficient in finding practical solutions that lead to pure meritocracy in education. After the literary analysis, the researcher concluded that Brown did was change the idea of equal educational access being available to African American as well as to white students but it did not question the established alternative analysis of how merit is measured.
School:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Department:
History
Research Advisor:
William Trent
Department of Research Advisor:
Educational Policy Studies
Year of Publication:
2006