Black children, white preference: Brown v. Board, the doll tests, and the politics of self-esteem

American Quarterly

Volumn 61, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 299-332

  Bergner, Gwen ^a  

^a WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 69249192892     PISSN: 00030678     EISSN: 10806490     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/aq.0.0070     Document Type: Review

References (152)

1. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 74 Sup. Ct. 686 (1954).
2. Kenneth Clark, "Effect of Prejudice and Discrimination on Personality Development," Midcentury White House Conference on Children and Youth, 1950.
3. Clark's manuscript was incorporated without specific attribution into Personality in the Making: The Fact-Finding Report of the Midcentury White House Conference on Children and Youth, ed. Helen Witmer and Ruth Kotinsky (New York: Harper Brothers, 1952).
4. The Clarks' racial preference tests were first developed by Mamie Phipps Clark in the 1930s as part of her MA thesis at Howard University. For more on Mamie Clark's often overlooked contribution to the Clarks' legacy, see Shafali Lal, "Giving Children Security: Mamie Phipps Clark and the Racialization of Child Psychology," American Psychologist 57.1 (2002): 20-28.
5. The Clarks asked the children to respond to a series of eight requests: "1. Give me the doll that you like to play with - like best. 2. Give me the doll that is a nice doll. 3. Give me the doll that looks bad. 4. Give me the doll that is a nice color. 5. Give me the doll that looks like a white child. 6. Give me the doll that looks like a colored child. 7. Give me the doll that looks like a Negro child. 8. Give me the doll that looks like you." Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie P. Clark, "Racial Identification and Preference in Negro Children," in Readings in Social Psychology, ed. Eleanor Maccoby, Theodore Newcomb, and Eugene Hartley, 3d ed. (1947; New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1958), 602.
6. Serge Madhere, "Self-Esteem of African American Preadolescents: Theoretical and Practical Considerations," Journal of Negro Education 60.1 (1991): 47.
7. Arthur Whaley, "Self-Esteem, Cultural Identity, and Psychosocial Adjustment in African American Children," Journal of Black Psychology 19.4 (1993): 407-8.
8. Though literature reviews regularly credit the Clarks with originating the research on racial preference, earlier racial preference studies preceded theirs, including Ruth Horowitz's "Racial Aspects of Self-Identification in Nursery School Children," which the Clarks cite (Journal of Psychology 7 [1939]: 91-99).
9. APA Online: "Segregation Ruled Unequal, and Therefore Unconstitutional," Psychology Matters, www. psychologymatters.org/clark. html/ (accessed January 13, 2004).
10. See also American Psychologist 57.1 (January 2002),
11. an APA journal issue devoted to a celebration of the Clarks' legacy, and the APA's Monitor on Psychology 35.8 (2004), an issue titled "50 Years Post-Brown."
12. Richard Kluger, Simple Justice (New York: Knopf, 1976), 353.
13. For a standard textbook account of the Clarks' doll test, see Elliot Aronson, Timothy D. Wilson, Robin M. Akert, eds., Social Psychology, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004), 458-460
14. For histories of social psychology's central role in shaping American public policy, see Ellen Herman, The Romance of American Psychology (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1995).
15. For an account focused on public policy related to race, see Daryl Michael Scott, Contempt and Pity: Social Policy and the Image of the Damaged Black Psyche 1880-1996 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).
16. Scott categorizes as "damage imagery" the wide range of social science theories about the negative effects of racism and discrimination on African American individuals, families, and cultures (Contempt and Pity, xii).
17. Howard Winant, Racial Conditions: Politics, Theory, Comparisons (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 24.
18. For an examination of the challenge posed to social psychology's claim of scienti ic objectivity by poststructuralist theory, generally, and by Michel Foucault's discourse analysis, specifically, see Ian Parker and John Shotter, eds., Deconstructing Social Psychology (New York: Routledge, 1990).
19. For a corroborating theory of African Americans' pleasurable and negotiated consumption of American mass culture, see Jacqueline Stewart's analysis of African American spectatorship of 1930s Hollywood film. Stewart argues that "black enjoyment of such films [does not] necessarily signify a posture of self-deprecation." Her theory of "reconstructive spectatorship" analyzes how "black viewers attempted to reconstitute and assert themselves in relation to the classical cinema's racist social and textual op erations." Stewart, "Negroes Laughing at Themselves? Black Spectatorship and the Performance of Urban Modernity," Critical Inquiry 29.4 (Summer 2003): 652, 653.
20. Michele Wallace also suggests that black women's identification with and viewing pleasure of classic Hollywood film stars in the 1950s "might have been about problematizing and expanding one's racial identity instead of abandoning it." She urges us to view spectatorship as potentially "multiracial and multiethnic." Wallace, "Race, Gender, and Psychoanalysis in Forties Film: Lost Boundaries, Home of the Brave, and The Quiet One," in Black American Cinema, ed. Manthia Diawara (New York: Routledge, 1993), 263-64.
21. See also Ann duCille, Skin Trade (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), 8-59.
22. Winant, Racial Conditions, 18.
23. After Brown, segregation's supporters argued that separating the races would be more conducive to healthy self-esteem and, therefore, educational achievement (Scott, Contempt and Pity, 38-39, 145).
24. Naomi Pabst, "Blackness/Mixedness: Contestations Over Crossing Signs," Cultural Critique 54 (Spring 2003): 209.
25. See, for example, Tracey Sedinger, "Nation and Identification: Psychoanalysis, Race, and Sexual Difference," Cultural Critique 50 (Winter 2002): 40-73.
26. David Theo Goldberg, "Made in the USA: Racial Mixing 'n Matching," in American Mixed Race, ed. Naomi Zack (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), 252, 254.
27. Pabst, "Blackness/Mixedness," 180. Barack Obama has undoubtedly raised consciousness of mixedrace identity in the United States, especially through his widely disseminated speech of March 18, 2008, in which he attempted to calm outrage over his association with black liberation theologist Jeremiah Wright. In that speech, he explained his racial identification with both black and white culture while identifying as an African American.
28. See also William Cross on "biculturalism" in Shades of Black (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 119, 123, 141.
29. In Meredith v. Jefferson County School Board, 127 Sup. Ct. 575 (2006) and
30. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 127 Sup. Ct. 574 (2007), the Supreme Court decided, in 5-4 decisions, that two school districts in Louisville, Kentucky, and Seattle could no longer achieve integration by assigning students to schools based on race. In this finding, the Court drew on the Bush administration's amicus brief that "cited socioeconomic integration as a 'race neutral' alternative to race-based assignment plans."
31. However, Justice Anthony Kennedy's concurrence to the Court's opinion sustains the goal of achieving racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity in public school student bodies, thus leaving some legal room to consider racial diversity as part of drawing school districts; Emily Bazelon, "The New Kind of Integration," New York Times Magazine, July 20, 2008, 40.
32. Plessy v. Ferguson, 16 Sup. Ct. 1138 (1896).
33. Plessy v. Ferguson, Ibid., 551.
34. Cheryl Harris analyzes Plessy's implications for the racialization of property or racial identity as property in "Whiteness as Property," in Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement," ed. Kimberlé Crenshaw et al. (New York: New Press, 1995), 276-291
35. Sweatt v. Painter, 70 Sup. Ct. 848 (1950), and
36. McLaurin v. Oklahoma, 70 Sup. Ct. 851 (1950);
37. Kluger, Simple Justice, 282-284
38. Brown v. Board of Education.
39. For criticisms of Brown's reliance on social science, see Herbert Wechsler, "Toward Neutral Principles of Constitutional Law," Harvard Law Review 73.1 (November 1959): 1-35;
40. Louis H. Pollak, "Racial Discrimination and Judicial Integrity: A Reply to Professor Wechsler," University of Pennsylvania Law Review 108.1 (November 1959): 1-34; and
41. Charles L. Black Jr., "The Lawfulness of the Segregation Decisions," Yale Law Journal 69 (January 1960): 421-430
42. Ludy T. Benjamin Jr. and Ellen M. Crouse, "The American Psychological Association's Response to Brown v. Board of Education: The Case of Kenneth B. Clark," American Psychologist 57.1 (2002): 38.
43. Max Deutscher and Isidor Chein, "The Psychological Effects of Enforced Segregation: A Survey of Social Psychology Opinion," Journal of Psychology 26 (1948): 259-287
44. "The Effects of Segregation and the Consequences of Desegregation: A Social Science Statement," Minnesota Law Review 37.6 (1953): 427-439
45. For an index of Clark's notable accomplishments, see Ben Keppel, "Kenneth B. Clark and the Patterns of American Culture," American Psychologist 57.1 (2002): 29-37.
46. Clark and Clark, "Racial Identification and Preference in Negro Children," 602.
47. See also Kenneth B. Clark and Mamie P. Clark, "The Development of Consciousness of Self and the Emergence of Racial Identification in Negro Preschool Children," Journal of Social Psychology, S.P.S.S.I. Bulletin 10 (1939): 591-99;
48. "Emotional Factors in Racial Identification and Preference in Negro Children," Journal of Negro Education, 19.3 (1950): 341-50;
49. "Segregation as a Factor in the Racial Identification of Negro Pre-School Children: A Preliminary Report," Journal of Experimental Education 8.2 (1939): 161-63;
50. "Skin Color as a Factor in Racial Identification of Negro Preschool Children," Journal of Social Psychology, S.P.P.S.I. Bulletin 11 (1940): 159-169
51. Clark and Clark, "Emotional Factors in Racial Identification," 350.
52. Clark and Clark, "Emotional Factors in Racial Identification," 607.
53. Kenneth B. Clark, "Desegregation: An Appraisal of the Evidence," Journal of Social Issues 9.4 (1953): 2-8.
54. Major social psychology works of the "black rage" era include Abram Kardiner and Lionel Ovesey, The Mark of Oppression (1951; New York: Meridian, 1962), and
55. William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs, Black Rage (New York: Basic Books, 1968).
56. For a history of the theoretical development of the "black self-hatred" model, see Joseph Baldwin, "Theory and Research Concerning the Notion of Black Self-Hatred: A Review and Reinterpretation," Journal of Black Psychology 5.2 (1979): 52-56. The argument that segregation damages the black psyche represented a shift from pro-segregation arguments, common to the interwar years, that proximity to whites damaged the black psyche.
57. For a discussion of Franz Boas's effect on the social sciences' approach to race, see Claudia Roth Pierpont, "The Measure of America: How a Rebel Anthropologist Waged War on Racism," New Yorker, March 8, 2004, 48-63.
58. Ben Keppel defends Clark's emphasis on the negative effects of discrimination rather than on children's positive coping mechanisms as a reflection of the "conventional wisdom" of the 1950s ("Kenneth B. Clark," 33).
59. Psychological work on ethnicity originally focused on European immigrants to the United States in the first decades of the twentieth century but shifted to African Americans as pressure for integration created a demand for social science research on racial attitudes; Judith Porter and Robert Washington, "Black Identity and Self-Esteem: A Review of Studies of Black Self-Concept," Annual Review of Sociology 5 (1979): 53.
60. Although early research in intergroup conflict addressed both the psychology of prejudice in whites and the psychological damage such prejudice ostensibly did to blacks, social scientists subsequently focused on black personality and culture, especially in relation to an ostensibly pathological family structure in which matriarchy destroyed black men's masculinity. Ellen Herman notes that social psychology's focus on gender and family structure in the 1950s and '60s evinces the popularization of psychoanalytic theory in the United States (Romance of American Psychology, 191).
61. Clark and Clark, "Racial Identification and Preference in Negro Children," 602-603
62. Baldwin, "Theory and Research Concerning the Notion of Black Self-Hatred," 70.
63. Porter and Washington, "Black Identity," 66.
64. Carol Stack, All Our Kin (New York: Harper & Row, 1974).
65. See Daniel Patrick Moynihan, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," in L. Rainwater and W. L. Yancey, eds., The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy (Boston: MIT Press, 1967), 39-78.
66. Whaley, "Self-Esteem," 408;
67. Michael McMillan, "The Doll Test Studies: From Cabbage Patch to Self-Concept," Journal of Black Psychology 14.2 (1988): 69;
68. Baldwin, "Theory and Research," 64-65.
69. Saul Feinman, "Trends in Racial Self-Image of Black Children: Psychological Consequences of a Social Movement," Journal of Negro Education 48.4 (1979): 488-499
70. Although Cross later revised his theory of nigrescence after realizing that self-esteem and racial group identity operate independently, he nonetheless maintained that "the black movement apparently did enhance both the PI [personal identity] and RGO [racial group orientation] domains of black identity" (Shades of Black, 138).
71. Psychologist Margaret Beale Spencer explains that preschool children (the age of most of the Clarks' test subjects) are not likely to have the cognitive ability or "operational thinking" to make the complex associations of "Eurocentric thinking" inferred from white preference behavior. In her study, "black preschool children . . . were able to maintain positive self-concept while showing the traditional findings of Eurocentric cultural stereotyping." Spencer, "Preschool Children's Social Cognition and Cultural Cognition: A Cognitive Developmental Interpretation of Race Dissonance Findings," Journal of Psychology 112.2 (1982): 276-277
72. Attempting to standardize methodology, Saul Feinman compared four doll test studies performed at different points over a period from 1947 to 1970 in order to determine whether black children's racial preference for blackness had increased as a result of the civil rights and black power movements. The comparison indicated some increase in preference for the black doll over time, but did not demonstrate the cause of such increase. Feinman hypothesizes that one reason for this increase might be children's increased familiarity with black dolls as they became more prevalent. All the test results were inconclusive, however, since they did not control f r region, sex, class, skin color variation, or familiarity with black dolls ("Trends in Racial Self-Image," 488-89).
73. Porter and Washington note this faulty reasoning ("Black Identity," 60-61).
74. Shirley Samuels, "An Investigation Into the Self Concepts of Lower- and Middle-Class Black and White Kindergarten Children, Journal of Negro Education, 42.4 (1973): 468-470
75. Editor's Note, Social Psychology, 41.1 (1978): 47.
76. Barry D. Adam, "Inferiorization and 'Self-Esteem,'" Social Psychology 41.1 (1978): 49.
77. Barry D. Adam, "Inferiorization and 'Self-Esteem,'" Social Psychology Ibid., 51, 50.
78. Roberta Simmons, "Blacks and High Self-Esteem: A Puzzle," Social Psychology 41.1 (1978): 54-55.
79. Roberta Simmons, "Blacks and High Self-Esteem: A Puzzle," Social Psychology Ibid., 56.
80. See, for example, Maxine Clark, "Racial Group Concept and Self-Esteem in Black Children," Journal of Black Psychology 8.2 (1982): 75-88, and
81. Elaine King and Frank Price, "Black Self-Concept: A New Perspective," Journal of Negro Education 48.2 (1979): 216-221
82. Maxine Clark, "Racial Group Concept," and
83. Spencer, "Preschool Children."
84. McMillan, "Doll Test Studies," 69.
85. Michael Hughes and David Demo, "Self-Perceptions of Black Americans: Self-Esteem and Personal Efficacy," American Journal of Sociology 95.1 (1989): 132;
86. Some studies indicated that there was no correlation between African American children's high selfesteem and academic achievement or between desegregation and academic achievement. See Darrel W. Drury, "Black Self-Esteem and Desegregated Schools," Sociology of Education 53.2 (1980): 88-103; and
87. Walter Stephen, "School Desegregation: An Evaluation of Predictions ade in Brown v. Board of Education," Psychological Bulletin (APA) 85.2 (1978): 217-238
88. Sharon-ann Gopaul-McNicol, "Racial Identification and Racial Preference of Black Preschool Children in New York and Trinidad," Journal of Black Psychology 14.2 (1988): 65-68; and
89. Darlene Powell-Hopson and Derek Hopson, "Implications of Doll Color Preferences Among Black Preschool Children and White Preschool Children," Journal of Black Psychology 14.2 (1988): 57-63.
90. Halford Fairchild, "Glorification of Things White," 73-74; and
91. Samella Abdullah, "The Media and the Doll Studies," 75-77.
92. Gopaul-McNicol, "Racial Identification," 68.
93. Powell-Hopson and Hopson, "Doll Color Preferences," 61-62.
94. See also Frederick Harper, "Developing a Curriculum of Self-Esteem for Black Youth," Journal of Negro Education 46.2 (1977): 133-140
95. See Debbie Thomas et al., "Multicultural Education: Reflections on Brown at 40," Journal of Negro Education 63.3 (1994): 460-69; and
96. Carl Grant, "Reflections on the Promise of Brown and Multicultural Education," Teachers College Record 96.4 (1995): 707-721
97. Shelby Steele, The Content of Our Character (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990);
98. Stephen L. Carter, Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby (New York: Basic Books, 1991); and
99. Ellis Cose, Rage of a Privileged Class (New York: Harper Collins, 1993)
100. See, for example, Adarand Constructors v. Pena, 115 Sup. Ct. 2097 (1995).
101. Herman, Romance of American Psychology, 264-275
102. Stephanie J. Rowley et al., "The Relationship Between Racial Identity and Self-Esteem in African American College and High School Students," Journal of P rsonality and Social Psychology 74.3 (1998): 715-24. This study explains that "researchers have failed to explicate the mechanism by which a strong racial identity should result in higher levels of self-esteem" (716).
103. Stephanie J. Rowley et al., "The Relationship Between Racial Identity and Self-Esteem in African American College and High School Students," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Ibid., 723.
104. Rowley et al. conclude: "The extent to which African American college students view race as a central aspect of their self-concept is not directly related to their level of personal self-esteem. It seems that strongly identifying with one's racial group does not necessarily result in positive feelings about oneself. Concomitantly, lack of identification with one's racial group does not necessarily result in personal self-hatred" ("Racial Identity and Self-Esteem," 719). None of the early racial preference research considered the effects of gender on children's responses to dolls, racial identity, or self-esteem. Additionally, dolls have not been used to test the relationship between gender and self-esteem, although they are widely used in research on gender role development.
105. John Wilson and Madonna Constantine, "Racial Identity Attitudes, Self-Concept, and Perceived Family Cohesion in Black College Students," Journal of Black Studies 29.3 (1999): 363.
106. Marie L. Miville et al., "Chameleon Changes: An Exploration of Racial Identity Themes of Multiracial People," Journal of Counseling Psychology 52.4 (2005): 508.
107. Slavoj Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (New York: Verso, 1989), 105.
108. According to Zizek, there are always two kin s of identification operating: imaginary identification, which is identification "with the image representing 'what we would like to be,'" and symbolic identification, which is identification with the gaze of the other who is watching us. That is, we adopt an image in order to appear likable to someone else (Zizek, Sublime Object, 105). In psychoanalytic terms, doll test researchers posit, in effect, that black children's preference for white dolls is an imaginary identification indicating that the children would like to be white and a symbolic identification with an internalized white gaze that values whiteness over blackness.
109. Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (1970; repr., New York: Plume/Penguin, 1994).
110. For criticism related to issues of racial and gender identity, popular culture, and aesthetic norms, see, for example, Susan Willis, "I Shop Therefore I Am: Is There a Place for Afro-American Culture in Commodity Culture?" in Changing Our Own Words, ed. Cheryl Wall, 173-95 (New York: Routledge, 1989);
111. Anne Anlin Cheng, "Wounded Beauty: An Exploratory Essay on Race, Feminism, and the Aesthetic Question," Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 19.2 (2000): 191-217;
112. Patrice Cormier-Hamilton, "Black Naturalism and Toni Morrison: The Journey Away from Self-Love in The Bluest Eye," MELUS 19.4 (1994): 109-27;
113. Gina Hausknecht, "Self-Possession, Dolls, Beatlemania, Loss," in The Girl: Constructions of the Girl in Contemporary Fiction by Women, ed. Ruth O. Saxton, 21-42 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998); and
114. Debra T. Werrlein, "Not So Fast, Dick and Jane: Reimagining Childhood and Nation in The Bluest Eye," MELUS 30.4 (2005): 53-72.
115. Morrison, Bluest Eye, 50, 23.
116. For a discussion of the novel's reception since its selection for Oprah Winfrey's Book Club, see John Young, "Toni Morrison, Oprah Winfrey, and Postmodern Popular Audiences," African American Review 35.2 (2001): 181-204.
117. For an argument that the novel induces moral shame in the white rea er, which can galvanize her to action in support of racial justice, see Kathleen Woodward, "Traumatic Shame: Toni Morrison, Televisual Culture, and the Cultural Politics of the Emotions," Cultural Critique 46 (Autumn 2000): 210-240
118. William Elwood and Mykola Kulish, The Road to Brown, documentary film, 56 min., University of Virginia, 1989;
119. George Stevens, Separate but Equal, historical drama, 3 hr., 14 min., Republic Pictures, USA, 1991; and
120. Helaine Head, Simple Justice, one-hour televised documentary on The American Experience, WGBH, Boston, 1993.
121. National Civil Rights Museum, "Interactive Tour: Resistance," www.civilrightsmuseum.org/tour/it261. html/ (accessed December 14, 2001).
122. Working Mother, September 2000.
123. This advertisement promotes Hallmark's "Warm Wishes" card line, an inexpensive greeting card line geared toward marking a range of casual relationships and occasions; "Facts About Hallmark Warm Wishes," June 2000, www.hallmark.com/ (accessed March 4, 2004).
124. Highmark Healthy High 5 is an initiative of the Highmark Foundation that has been made possible through a grant from Highmark, Inc. (Paint, 60 sec., Highmark Foundation, 2006, DVD).
125. Kiri Davis, A Girl Like Me, 7.08 min., Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, 2006, www.mediathatmattersfest. org/6/a-girl-like-me/ (accessed June 3, 2007).
126. Keppel, "Kenneth B. Clark," 35.
127. See, for example, Gary Orfield and Erika Frankenberg, "Where Are We Now?" Teaching Tolerance, Spring 2004, 57;
128. Pedro Noguera and Robert Cohen, "Beyond Black, White, and Brown: A Forum," Nation, May 3, 2004, 18;
129. Peter Schrag, "What's Good Enough," Nation, May 3, 2004, 41;
130. Amanda Paulson, "Brown's Promise: Yet to be Fulfilled," Christian Science Monitor, May 11, 2004, www. csmonitor.com/2004/0511/p01s04- 1gn.html/ (accessed May 15, 2007);
131. Peter Irons, Jim Crow's Children: The Broken Promise of the Brown Decision (New York: Viking, 2002);
132. Derrick Bell, Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
133. The "failed promise" of Brown served as a slogan or catch phrase for many commemorative conferences, colloquia, and Web sites; see, for example, University of Michigan, "Brown v. Board of Education Commemoration 1954-2004, 'Beyond Brown'" (2004), www.umich. edu/∼urel/brown50/ beyond.html/ (accessed May 15, 2007);
134. Howard University School of Law, "Brown@50: Fulfilling the Promise," www.brownat50.org/ (accessed May 15, 2007);
135. Carol Bash and Lullie Haddad, "Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise," 1 hr. documentary aired by Public Broadcasting Service, May 2004.
136. Noguera and Cohen, "Beyond Black, White," 18.
137. Michael Fletcher, "Long Division," Crisis 108.5 (2001): 27. I examine social psychology's discourse of race and self-esteem in the context of debates about school segregation and achievement, a discourse that took shape in relation to a black-white racial binary; more recent debates over Latino and Asian achievement are beyond the scope of this article.
138. See Fletcher, "Long Division," 26-27;
139. Schrag, "What's Good Enough," 41; and
140. Claude M. Steele, "Not Just a Test," Nation, May 3, 2004, 38.
141. For a discussion of cultural and psychological contributions to the achievement gap, see also Christopher Jencks and Meredith Philipps, eds., The Black-White Test Score Gap (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998); and
142. James Traub, "What No School Can Do," New York Times Magazine, January 16, 2000, sec. 6, 52-57, 68, 81, 90-91.
143. See Wayne Au, "Brown v. Bush," Rethinking Schools - Online 18.3 (2004), www.rethinkingschools. org/archive/18-03/nclu183.shtml/ (accessed May 15, 2007), and
144. U.S. Department of Education, "Remarks by Secretary Paige at the Kennedy School of Government," April 22, 2004, www.ed.gov/ new/speeches/2004/04/04222004.html/ (accessed May 15, 2007).
145. Fletcher, "Long Division," 26-31;
146. Meredith Phillips et al., "Family Background, Parenting Practices, and the Black-White Test Score Gap," in The Black-White Test Score Gap, ed. Jencks and Philipps, 103-45; and
147. Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson, "Stereotype Threat and the Test Performance of Academically Successful African Americans," in The Black-White Test Score Gap, ed. Jencks and Philipps, 401-427
148. See also Center for Education Policy, "It Takes More Than Testing: Closing the Achievement Gap" (April 2001), and
149. National Education Association, "Brown v. Board," www.nea. org/brownvboard/index2.html/ (accessed May 15, 2007).
150. As late as 1986, Kenneth Clark acknowledged that the aggregate of social science evidence to date had not proved that desegregation led either to increased self-esteem or academic achievement among African American students; "The Social Sciences and the Courts," Social Policy 17.1 (Summer 1986): 37.
151. "Brown at 50" (special issue), Nation, May 3, 2004.
152. R. J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (New York: Free Press, 1994).