Urban Education and Equality of Opportunity: The Case for a Culturally Pragmatic Approach to Education in Urban School

Black American students continue to lag behind White Americans in measures of academic achievement. In this thesis, I make the case that the achievement gap and lack of social mobility faced by African American students can be attributed to the fact that urban schools have not set the conditions for equality of opportunity. I argue that the crux of the problem is mainly cultural; specifically, that the home culture of students is not utilized in the classroom, nor is the dominant culture explicitly taught in order to impart priceless cultural capital. To get closer to achieving equality of opportunity, I am proposing an approach I call "culturally pragmatic education." This approach brings the home culture of students into the classroom and also incorporates cultural capital into the curriculum; thereby allowing students to maintain cultural integrity, while at the same time acquiring the cultural tools needed for success in mainstream society.