Navigating the hidden tracks of education: A critical race analysis of academic tracking through choice practices

Despite efforts to close the achievement gap by detracking courses in secondary schools, students of color continue to graduate ill-prepared to enter and excel in higher education and enter the 21st-century workforce. Practices like tracking continue to be key factors in underpreparing students of color and limiting their access to a high-quality education. While tracking has been recognized to cause more harm to students of color, it continues to exist in schools through colorblind practices like choice practices, making them a more acceptable means to provide students a differentiated and unequal education. The aim of this research is to examine how tracking continues to function in detracked schools adopting freedom of choice in course enrollment. From a Critical Race framework, this study will explore how choice practices influence the academic choices and outcomes of students of color. Through open-ended interviews with students and parents from Willow Glen High School, the following questions were examined: 1) What institutional factors (e.g. guidance counselors, teachers, tests, peers, etc.) are influencing students’ own academic perceptions, decisions, and outcomes? 2) How do students describe their educational experiences along racial and class lines? After the data was collected and transcribed, the data was organized into themes that both align with the CRT tenets (racism is endemic, whiteness as property, colorblindness, interest convergence, counter storytelling, intersectionality) and represent the students’ academic experience with tracking through choice practices.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Cardenas Gonzalez, Nancy D.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dixson, Adrienne D
• Hass-Dyson, Anne
• Dowling, Julie
• Inda, Jonathan X

• choice
• tracking
• CRT

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Nancy Cardenas Gonzalez

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115389

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F115389