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Dissertation Information for Susan Margaret McGrath

NAME:
- Susan Margaret McGrath

DEGREE:
- Ph.D.

DISCIPLINE:
- History

SCHOOL:
- Emory University (USA) (1992)

ADVISORS:
- Dan T. Carter

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
- None

MPACT Status: Incomplete - Inspected

Title: Great expectations: The history of school desegregation in Atlanta and Boston, 1954-1990

Abstract: This dissertation examines the issue of public school desegregation by comparing the implementation of this process in two cities, Atlanta and Boston, during the period of 1954 to 1990. Public school education represents one of the most enduring symbols of upward mobility in American culture. Black Americans shared the faith in that symbol and fought to obtain equal access to this means of upward mobility by mounting a legal challenge to segregated education. Their efforts to obtain equal access involved two competing symbols for educational equality: community control and court-ordered busing. Desegregation of public schools in Atlanta, where community control prevailed, and in Boston, where court-ordered busing prevailed, illustrates that neither strategy could transcend the impact of local politics. Rather, desegregation of the public schools in these two cities was shaped by their respective local histories.

Community control of public schools represented the philosophy of separatism as a means of maintaining control over the educational process as well as over the transmission of cultural values. Court-ordered busing was a remedy proposed to replace pupil placement plans that had achieved only token desegregation. Pupil placement plans, which subjected black students to intelligence and psychological testing in order to qualify for transfer to formerly white schools, left the process of desegregation up to the discretion of white school administrators. As a means of eliminating the barriers created by this discretionary power, the NAACP and its Legal Defense Fund advocated busing both white and black students in order to racially balance public schools.

A comparison of school desegregation in Atlanta and Boston illustrates the importance of community control and court-ordered busing as political symbols. It also demonstrates that there was no agreement on the means and ends of obtaining educational equality. Politicians, as well as lawyers, judges, sociologists, and educators, were far more concerned with promoting their own political agendas and demonstrating the validity of their own theories than they were remedying educational inequalities. The political imbroglios that entangled school desegregation shattered the great expectations which black Americans placed on public education.

MPACT Scores for Susan Margaret McGrath

A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2008-05-31 13:51:39

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Students under Susan Margaret McGrath

ADVISEES:
- None

COMMITTEESHIPS:
- None