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Gender and Race Disparity in Urban Education and its Implication on Labor Market
Patterns
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Gender and Race Disparity in Urban Education and its Implication on Labour Market
Patterns
Introduction
The last few decades have been central in the progress towards bridging the gender and
race education gap around the world. The United States education landscape has undergone a
dynamic shift against the mainstream assumption that males dominate all levels of education,
occupations, and elite professions. Instead, figures suggest that the general female population is
increasingly becoming popular in areas previously reserved for men counterparts: their
proportion in the education and executive business positions are advancing conspicuously.
However, gender and race disparity still remains eminent in other aspects such as career choices
at college levels and involvement in STEM disciplines. Despite better higher education
attainment compared to men, young minority women in urban settings still register higher
unemployment rates, although the trend continues to narrow with higher education levels.
Premised on extant evidence linking success in educational attainment with better occupational
and economic outcomes in later life, this essay focuses on the gender and race disparity issue in
urban education as well as its impact on the later life economic participation of African
American females.
Historical Context of African American Female Participation in Education
Historically, gender disparities in many aspects of society have been reported across the
world, with some theorists coming up with explanations to help conceive such unfair
developments. Most of these challenges, as popular theories claim, emanate from social
constructions that suggest some backgrounds, races, and skin color, are more prestigious than
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others. These social injustices have undesirable implications for marginal societies, particularly
because they impact how individuals fair in later life. Green & Gooden (2014) explore out-ofschool challenges that impact the lives of marginalized communities. They do so in an attempt to
find suitable approaches that would help bridge the disparity gaps in regard to access to quality
education in urban schools.
Albeit improvements in gender and racial equalities as it pertains to accessing education,
the current situation is far from being a fairground where diverse populations can access
education and utilize it in enhancing their socioeconomic statuses. A current study on the matter
illustrates that the U.S is still confronting difficulties in regard to transforming urban education
to ensure it runs on pedagogies that address individual learners consistently with the challenges
they face in the wider society. Green & Gooden (2014) postulate that strategies planted to
improve racial and gender disparities in urban education settings have been futile, with
insignificant benefits for the victims. The U.S has been emphasizing top-down reforms and
policies that have terribly failed to make noticeable changes in urban schools dominated by
people of color. A convincing reason for the failure of these approaches is that the relevant
authorities—the federal government and curriculum developers—ignore the call to address the
ways in which poverty and inequalities shape learning attainments and overall school
performance.
Beyond this factor, the improvement systems over-emphasize in-school factors—
instructions and student achievement—which are not encompassed in the main problem that
marginal populations face. Out-of-school dimensions have the most influence on educational
attainments among marginal groups. Speaking from the perspective of black students, poverty
and racism are indispensable factors that must be accounted for in efforts toward bridging
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educational attainment gaps. There is an unwavering need to consider the interplay between
urban schools, community development, and social justice. The main focus to elevate
marginalized populations, as studies indicate, would be to build community schools: this
approach is critical to enhancing educational outcomes and developing stronger communities.
Community schools, which link education and place, have a long history in the U.S., as
they started gaining popularity in the 1950s when Africa-American Schools were being
established (Green & Gooden, 2014). They were perceived to be important to facilitating social
changes and still would be an instrument to allow social justice in the school system. Most would
agree that community schools afford opportunities for marginal communities to move up through
the social ladder, especially because they put into consideration the struggles, values, and
cultural beliefs of the learners. Therefore, developments in regard to disparities in urban
education against the favor of marginal communities have been a challenge since the founding of
America and have persisted hitherto, disqualifying the marginalized populations from prestigious
jobs in the corporate world. Despite noticeable accomplishments, the government and
stakeholders need to invest in strategies that consider the environment in which learners are
raised. In so doing, it would be possible to develop pedagogies relevant to the individual needs of
students, meaning better chances of enhancing academic attainments among students of color
and marginalized leaders in general.
Assessing Gender and Race Equity in Education
Efforts to advance gender and race equity in education have mainly been framed on
earlier studies that linked it with a range of improved economic and social outcomes both in the
developed and the developed world. Related empirical evidence, mainly gathered in the 2000s,
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found that educating women of color as equally as doing men extended beneficial outcomes not
only to their occupations and economic expansion but also in the dimensions of some other
cultural and social aspects that support societal growth. For instance, educating women of color
has been linked with lower fertility, better child health, economic and social productivity, and
increases in life expectancies. A section of qualitative evidence aimed at exploring a comparative
view of the situation established consistent evidence suggesting that educated women of color
extended more far-reaching impacts at the societal level compared to men with similar
educational backgrounds. In addition, other studies have established that policies and programs
aimed at driving gender equity in education registered more significant benefits compared to
other interventions such as providing family planning services. Put together, these pieces of
evidence suggest that investing in gender and race equity in education propagates economic and
social growth.
The educational gender and race gap continue to close in most developed economies due
to the implementation of certain programs and policies aimed at shaping the dynamics of
education and increasing female participation at various levels. Such programs have been framed
on deep theoretical understanding of the role of capitalist systems in driving specific changes
within patriarchy in ways that do not uphold the value of gender equity within school
environments (Eisenstein, 1999). Along with federal and state government coordinated efforts,
international institutions have been central to shaping the possible outcome of gender inequality
eradication in the U.S. Specific approaches to eradicating gender bias in education have been
scholarly assessed in successful contexts such as the U.S. and Finland, and several
recommendations posted. For instance, it is suggested that such initiatives should be situational
(designed to serve specific needs), evaluative (incrementally assessed, reassessed, and readjusted
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to fit needs), and collaborative in the sense that they must involve the collective involvement of
policymakers, administrators, students, parents, and other stakeholders.
Such findings are consistent with the ideas of radical feminist thinkers such as Catharine
MacKinnon and Patricia Collins who posited that inequity in basic aspects of life such as
education, healthcare as well as social, political, economic participation, connects back to
women even they are not directly at the center of such oppressions. Amid these successes, the
issue of gender inequality in education is not completely resolved in U.S schools due to the
impact of specific forces such as widening socioeconomic gaps inherent in different residential
regions. Within urban education systems, for instance, there still exist elements that imply
school-level gender segregation and which have been linked with a growing gender gap in
stream and career choices in high school and higher education levels. Borrowing from
Eisenstein’s (1999) Capitalist Patriarchy and Social Feminism Theory, it is possible the gender
gap in education and the gendered trajectories to which it sets women, albeit a narrowing one, is
likely to shape the trends of their economic participation in adult life. Unless gender inequity in
education experiences is fully resolved, efforts to advance their freedoms of economic
participation will remain futile.
The Reality of Gender and Race Disparity in Urban Education
Urban dwelling African American women have remained in the chains of systemic
oppression, one aspect of which is their deprivation of the right to acquire similar levels and
qualities of education as the rest of the American population. Black Feminist theorist Patricia
Hill Collins (2002) argued that African American women have particularly struggled with the
acquisition of such noble needs because of specific presumptions that place them within the
distinctive themes of family, work, sexuality, motherhood, and domestic delivery. Early black
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education philosophical frameworks were mainly framed on the idea that for Afrocentric women,
knowledge acquisition was a powerful process that made empowerment efforts more rapid.
Besides, education as a source of knowledge necessary for facilitating individual and collective
consciousness has been linked with faster social transformations of both political and economic
elements of Black people. Several Black Feminist theorists, out of their experience and those of
other Black people, think that giving Black females equal opportunities to education marks a
beginning to debunking structural and systemic stereotypes imposed on them.
The Center for American Progress projected in 2013 that females of color, one of which
are African Americans, will comprise approximately 53% of the U.S. population by the year
2050 (Byrd et al., 2019). It is imperative that they are not overlooked in ongoing national
discourses pertaining to imbalances in educational experiences and subsequent economic
participation because this will imply they are subsumed under other groups by gender and/or
race. Still, this is the situation in which urban females have been subjected amid unprecedented
inequalities, oppressions, and marginalization in the areas of education and labor markets.
Researchers, on the other hand, have focused their attention on Black males (Byrd et al., 2019).
This is despite previous findings that both male and female African Americans lag behind in
academic achievement compared to their white and Asian counterparts and that the gap
continues to widen at 13 years and beyond. Such neglect often serves the capitalist determinants
that shape the oppression of women within gender and class domains as outlined in the work of
Giménez (2005). A more equitable approach to education would address the oppression.
The contemporary urban education framework of the United States has resulted from
historic systemic racial segregation that mainly focused on establishing clear socioeconomic
boundaries between white Americans and other ethnic minority groups. Previous studies on the
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segregation of education have mainly been preoccupied with the race function of inequity and
have failed to recognize the connection between race and gender, and how it shapes the
educational experiences of African American females living in inner-city settings. Besides,
inequality in Black and Latino Americans-dominated inner-city neighborhoods has been assessed
mainly on the premise of the socioeconomic gap between them and neighboring suburbs. Also as
part of the extant knowledge on the issues of inequity within urban education, the gender
differences in the exposure to crimes and drug use has been assessed, and boys were found to be
more crime-prone compared to their female counterparts. Such studies have established that
gendered notions about African American girls and boys attending such institutions shape their
resilience and academic achievement. Various aspects of urban education systems disadvantage
Black girls both by race and gender.
African American females living and learning in urban settings face both gender and race
inequality in educational attainment, experience, and progress. The current U.S. educational
system serves approximately 5.2% of the total student population (7.6 million) and the large
population makes it imperative to track educational attainment and progress as key measures of
academic, social, and economic success. Education attainment has been assessed on the premise
of various parameters which include student outcomes, dropout, and graduation rates. Girls
exceed boys in all dimensions except dropout reduction rates. Compared to urban-dwelling
Black girls, Black boys have registered more substantial reductions in school dropout rates,
moving from 13% to 7% between 1990 and 201. Girls, on the other hand, have registered a 3%
reduction in the school dropout rates from 11% in 1990 to 8% in 2011. By race, their reduction
rates are inferior to that of White girls (14%) and Hispanic girls (5%). Dropout rates do not
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accurately capture the complexity of disparity facing African American females, but they echo
their experience, performance, and outcomes.
The findings illustrated here make it imperative to examine the roles of race and gender
in the educational equity discourse in the United States, other developed economies, and the
developing world. The over-representation of Black males in such discourses, particularly in
special education, and the lack of enough representation of Black females in gifted education
insinuates that the experiences of Black females in urban education systems are worthy of
scholarly scrutiny. The widespread recognition of African American male educational crisis that
has reached its historic high has led to the emergence of initiatives such as My Brother’s Keeper
that aim at mediating the challenges facing Black males in urban settings so as to remedy their
deteriorating academic patterns (Holzman, 2012). However, efforts to recognize the multiple
dimensions of educational disparities facing Black females have remained a challenge given the
widely shared understanding of its historical contexts. Historically, and particularly since the
Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, urban societies have conditioned African American
females to privilege their race or gender identities, instead of focusing on both aspects. Surviving
the systematical bias education system has been difficult due to this identity limitation.
Theoretical Lenses
Various theoretical frameworks afford insights into disparities in urban schools. Critical
Race Theory (CRT) is among the popular theories that could be used to conceptualize the
oppression of marginal groups in urban education. Urban populations are often richly diverse,
meaning that teaching pedagogies need to consider the aspects of differentiation that shape
educational outcomes. Tate (1996) contends that some dimensions of society shape the winners
and losers on the various fronts in society. one of these dimensions is race and has historically
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illustrated its influence on dividing people along factors like color and race. CRT theory seeks to
eliminate race-based oppression in various dimensions of social and political life. The movement
probes the intersection of society, race, and other factors in the U.S. It seeks to challenge
mainstream approaches to injustices and its impacts could have some contradicting impacts,
especially because some commentators criticize this theory and have advocated for the removal
of some learning materials that teach about racial awareness in schools.
Capitalism is yet another theoretical perspective to enhance understanding of oppression
against marginal groups in urban areas. People of color are marginalized in the education sector
because the economic model in the U.S does not favor low-income families. Approximately 90%
of the wealth is owned by 10% of people in the U.S., meaning that the elite, wealthy population
owns the means of production, while the majority must be conditioned to serve capitalist
economies by supplying labor in the corporate world. The Eurocentric pedagogy aligns with
capitalism in perpetuating inequalities by striving to maintain the status quo. Eurocentric
education conditions people of color to perceive their role in serving capitalist needs—labor
(Rhyne, 2017). The offered education is intended to prepare students from marginal populations
to serve the capitalist economy.
In patriarchal systems, women are undervalued and occupy insignificant positions in
society as compared to men counterparts. Social activists have cited the system as among the
reinforcers of inequalities. In the context of urban education, patriarchy would likely underplay
the interests of women as it pertains to schooling. Ecofeminists contend that patriarchy is the
genesis of both environmental pollution and women's oppression (Conway, 2001). Women's
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everyday life revolves around caring and domestic duties, such as cooking and fetching water.
Literature gives substantial evidence of the existence of political elements in the private lives of
women (Theresa, 2007). The effect of this dominance extends to many areas, including
education. The influence further extends to the job market because the system is blamed for the
extant gender discrepancies in public offices and top business leadership positions.
Possible Solutions to Inequalities in Urban Education
On out-of-school dimensions that shape education outcomes, studies have investigated
the quality of schools in urban areas, with some of them indicating that affluent families are
inclined to move to regions that feature high-quality, resourceful schools. The implication of this
trend is that schools perceived to be of high quality would target learners who can pay premium
costs to get their services. Students from low-income families are left with no option rather than
to join low-quality public schools that offer substandard education (Holme, 2002). The notion
illuminates the role of socio-economic statuses in shaping educational outcomes. Many parents
from marginalized backgrounds might not be able to secure homes in urban areas with a high
number of quality schools. Learners from low-income families, therefore, would be left to attend
low-quality schools.
Consequently, in the long run, students from marginal groups will be all relegated to lowquality schools wherein academic attainments might be not that impressive. The development
underscores the role of economic welfare in shaping educational outcomes in urban areas. The
phenomenon also suggests that the education system is fabricated in a fashion that seeks to
maintain the status quo rather than sparking social changes that would be needed to close the gap
in educational attainments among the various social groups. Lipman, (2009) highlights a
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plausible solution toward this challenge. He recommends a system to ensure that urban areas
feature homes appropriate for both low-income and high-income families. Mixed-income
neighborhoods would be a practical way to alleviate inequalities that continues to ravage
marginal groups in the education system.
Another applicable solution to inequalities in urban education would be to establish
school systems and learning pedagogies premised on the Critical Care Theory. This approach
proposes a curriculum that caters to the care needs of students based on their backgrounds—
gender, race, and color (Rene & Anthony, 2006). The theory takes into account the link between
place and education. It acknowledges the struggles and experiences that marginal students face in
schools. Indeed, this approach is appropriate because it criticizes the color blind curriculum for
its exclusive dimensions.
Summary
Inequalities in urban education have existed for centuries in the U.S. The study probed
the oppression of marginal communities and learners in the urban education landscape. The
study finds that people of color, low-income families, and women are denied social justice in the
education sector. The government acknowledges the problem, but its interventions to address the
matter have been futile. The problem is important because equality in education shapes academic
achievement and that marginal populations might fail in education because they lack access to
quality education and resources. Subsequently, the outcome would likely impact this group
negatively, as education is vital to securing good jobs. With poor academic achievements, the
marginal communities would appear inferior to their counterparts in job hunting. The issue is
attributable to theories, such as CRT, Patriarchy, and Capitalism. As a teacher practitioner, I
would recommend a revamp of strategies aimed at enhancing learning opportunities for marginal
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groups. I believe that new approaches should consider out-of-school aspects that shape
educational outcomes. Admittedly, place and education are linked and the outcomes of their
interactions must be accounted for when devising pedagogies for urban schools.
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