Despite the Best Intentions

Amanda Lewis studies racial dynamics in the contemporary US. Her research focuses on how race shapes educational opportunities and on how our ideas about race get negotiated in everyday life. She is the author of the award-winning Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the color-line in classrooms and communities along with several other volumes. She is on the faculty in the Departments of Sociology and African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.John Diamond is a sociologist of education who focuses on how race, ethnicity, and social class intersect with school leadership, practices, and policies to shape educational opportunities and outcomes. He is the Hoefs-Bascom Professor of Education at University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education. Previously, he was an associate professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and past research director for a consortium of U.S. schools that used research to address racial achievement disparities.

• PREFACECHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTIONCHAPTER 2 - RACE, OPPOSITIONAL CULTURE, AND SCHOOL OUTCOMES: ARE WE BARKINGUP THE WRONG TREE?CHAPTER 3 - THE ROAD TO DETENTION IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS: RACE ANDDISCIPLINE AT RIVERVIEWCHAPTER 4 - "IT'S LIKE TWO HIGH SCHOOLS:" RACE, TRACKING, AND PERFORMANCEEXPECTATIONSCHAPTER 5 - OPPORTUNITY HOARDING: CREATING AND MAINTAINING RACIAL ADVANTAGECHAPTER 6 - CONCLUSIONAPPENDIX AREFERENCES

"Lewis and Diamond persuasively explain the gross misalignment between abstract values and unequal outcomes. In a racially diverse school like Riverview, parents, teachers, and students can value diversity and equality in principle, but they can also behave in ways that exacerbate and reproduce class and racial hierarchies, resulting in an achievement gap that will not disappear with raceneutral policies." - Jennifer Lee, Columbia University, American Journalof Sociology