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Detracking: The Social Construction of Ability, Cultural Politics, and Resistance to Reform
Abstract
Structural changes necessary in detracking efforts challenge not only the technical dimensions of schooling, but also the normative and political dimensions. We argue that detracking reform confronts fundamental issues of power, control, and legitimacy that are played out in ideological struggles over the meaning of knowledge, intelligence, ability, and merit. This article presents results from a three-year longitudinal case study of ten racially and socioeconomically mixed secondary schools participating in detracking reform. We connect prevailing norms about race and social class that inform educators’, parents’, and students’ conceptions of intelligence, ability, and giftedness with the local political context of detracking. By examining these ideological aspects of detracking we make a case for reexamining common presumptions that resistance to policies providing greater opportunities to low-income and minority children is driven by rational estimates of the learning costs and benefits associated with such reforms.
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“The implementation of de-tracking in schools have been fraught with challenges and tremendously complex, not only with the logistics, but particularly with the attempt to transform parents' and students' long-held, deeply-ingrained dispositions regarding the acquisition of knowledge and privilege that is rooted in years of tracking (Oakes, Wells, Jones, & Datnow, 1997).”
From The Relationship of High School Curriculum Tracks to Degree Attainment and Occupational Earnings (2009) · cites this paper as Oakes, Wells, Jones, & Datnow, 1997
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“…seen that efforts to promote equitable school organization through detracking have met with strong resistance from some educators and community members whose deep-seated assumptions about race and student ability constitute a formidable barrier to change (Hubbard and Mehan 1999; Oakes et al. 1997).”
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“Oakes et al. (1997) described the ideological impediments to successful detracking rooted in the ways that Americans link race, social class, and intelligence.”
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Metadata
- Authors
- Oakes, J., Wells, A. S., Jones, M., & Datnow, A.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Los Angeles (US)
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- ORCID
- Datnow, Amanda
- Venue
- Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1997-01
- Volume
- 98
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 482-510
- ISSN
- 0040-0475 (ISSN-L)
- 0161-4681
- 1467-9620
- OpenAlex
- W2725780926
- Cited by
- 361
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 29 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 19 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 13 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 23
- FWCI
- 33.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Teachers College Record The Voice of Scholarship in Education (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Critical Race Theory in Education
- Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies
- Keywords
- detracking, gifted education, cultural politics, resistance to educational reform, race and class, secondary schools, low-income students, minority students
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