Race and Ethnicity in Education History

This chapter examines race and ethnicity in educational history in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, and Brazil. Differentiation and segregation based on race, religion, gender, ability, and socioeconomic class, were common features in designing school systems to promote a nation’s efforts toward citizenship. In the United States and elsewhere, efforts to inculcate norms of democratic citizenship were equally fraught with means to deculturalize minority, immigrant, and indigenous populations. As such, this chapter focuses primarily on racialized minority populations and limitations of access to public schooling centered on democratic citizenship. It surveys educational policies and practices from the colonial era through the mid-twentieth century, examining the role of religion, immigration, language, countries of origin, and race. It also discusses how schooling systems have prepared future citizenry for diversity.