I teach on race and inequality and courses on Research Methods and how people can study schools more effectively and we are going to go out and work elsewhere to think about organizations. My mother is an education professor who started as a first grade teacher and i became interested in trying to understand because i was a sociologist by training, my doctoral work in the sociology and equality in schools and the place where it is manifested itself where we hope to challenge but its also the place we could sort of understand the dynamics. That leads us into the book. How racial equality thrives. You and amanda lewis who is who . A colleague i started working with here at the university. At university. At the university of illinois in chicago and they are the coauthors of this book. And professor diamond, you say that it all started with a phone call. It all started with a phone call. Ive been engaged in working schools trying to address the achievement in equality. The principle from the School Called up and said they are having this struggle. Talking to the students to try to understand whats going on in this achievement gap that we see in the school why is it that black and latino kids are achieving lowlevel you talk about the school as Riverview High School and the matrox bedrest. How much of that is made up of Israel School . It is predominantly middleclass, racially diverse in the place that is known for its progressive liberal ethos in the context. Riverview made up the matrox midwest . They are all pseudonyms for people. What is it about the school that attracted you to write about his . Be integrated for probably 30 or 40 years and what you find is not the sort of standard and severity. Most are blackandwhite enough families. Most folks again publicly espouse the gala. Those and be needed diversity and many of them moved to this because it is a dangerous place. So the idea that this is a Progressive Community that believes in racial equality. The teachers are highquality and the resources are abundant and we really want to understand whats going on here that the racial inequality still exists . When you talk about inequalities you are talking about statistical inequalities and to talk about the stats. What are you finding . We looked at grades, black and latino students have more grades on average they were not doing as well on the tests so the proficiency levels that they were taking black and latino were not doing as well as white counterparts. We looked at things like Graduation Rates where most were graduating and going on to college which was a positive thing but more of the black and latino students were as opposed to the four year college so there were always inequalities all these inequalities in the differences that manifested themselves in the school and made us wonder what was going on inside of the School Context and so we wanted to understand race into the racial dynamics as well as the dynamics that might be leading to these qualities and so we thought mr. Webers invitation was a great opportunity to look at what was going on were generally so we started with the black students and we wound up interviewing about 171 people in the community including the members of the teachers, administrators to get a complete picture of what was happening in the context. One of the things that really struck us coming into this is the really wanted to understand what was racial about these inequalities. Theres all this research that talks about race and what it means to understand it and one of the first things we wanted to understand is this idea of oppositional culture. They were uninterested in school in education and the peers criticized them for behaving in ways that would lead to academic success and the sort of acting white hypothesis you heard from everyone from president obama talking about education and we found is that that really wasnt an explanation that carried much. What we found for example is that there was no more negative pressure for black students and white students but they were actually more pro students than their counterparts in the found this through interviewing and through the survey that we conducted in riverview and 14 other School Districts and we found that they were more pro schools and their white counterparts come as a wealthy really wanted to do in a piece of the work was to debunk the idea. We found the evidence to have the evidence to support the idea that this isnt really going on in the context of the schools in the riverview and that there were other things that were manifesting themselves. Such as . We have a lot of discourse and discussion about the racial achievement gap but while thats happening is people dont really invasion the idea of race itself. What does race actually mean . So they would talk about it as a variable but they do not impact so if you think about race you have to let you store and we would have spent used for. It emerges at a time when you have slavery happening at all these inequalities and you have genocide of the native americans and what race wound up being is a construct that allowed people to object to find out and one of the things that continues to exist is this idea that they are not essentially as intelligent as white students and that they were likely to be violent or just behave and so one of the things that manifests itself in the contemporary context based on this is the black and latino bodies and the lack of intelligence that people have received. And these things are really apparent when we talk to people in the context and again like i said before we interview black, white and latino to try to understand what is happening at there was a pretty consistent story that people preceded by the black and latino students were not as intelligent, were not going to achieve as well and were not going to behave as well as their white counterparts. So there was the perception. Was there a reality . What we think about in regards to the reality is a sort of selffulfilling prophecy once you decide that someone is going to misbehave you were going to scrutinize them more so with the found is that for example, in the whole way to end the schools students are supposed to have a pass when they are not in a classroom and into the hallway during class. What we found is that students would say i never need a whole path i walk through freely and they would say but i know my friends can ever do that so there is a process of hyper surveillance at the and that the likelihood of being in violation of the past code is much higher if you are stopped and if youre not. Its like racial profiling and policing so thats one of the examples of how this plays itself out and the students were trying to make sense of it saying its not fair. Its not something that happens all the time. The administrators were making sense of it when they talked about having black and white students in the office and went when they did ask if they need a pass to get back to class they would say i never get stopped. Black students were always asked for a pass. So not only were black students talking about this, white students and administrators and others that talk about how discipline wasnt needed fairly through students and we have similar patterns we saw in classrooms and how they were expected to achieve. Professor diamond, what does that have to do with test scores or academic achievement . When students come to school they are looking for a number of things particularly adolescents. They want to be long. Belong. They want their peers to accept them. It is the context of context of a belong in that context when they are being surveyed and questioned and if they belong they are being scrutinized and in the published for things the peers are not. When we layer on top of that there is a perception that students that were close that were associated with africanamerican culture were more likely to be scrutinized and students that didnt reduce kind of clothing as they were for example a button up shirt and a pair of khakis they were often assumed to be good kids and if they wore clothes that were associated with hiphop culture, they felt like they were more scrutinized and this is something that was echoed among many people so when you have to deny a part of your self to navigate your School Context that naturally may lead you to be like you are not necessary part of the environment. Bust your test scores are lower and your academic achievement is lower. If you feel scrutinized and you feel less likely to be embraced as part of the environment that can happen that the other part of the performance expectation is that the teachers expect in the classroom. So what he found is that black students talked about the fact that the teachers didnt expect much of them. As they navigated to the school the parents talked about the global expectations and those also become a self fulfilling prophecy. They provide wireless access to rigorous instructional curriculum and they provide another set of messages about who is capable in the context and whos not. It became embedded in the School Environment thats about 45 white and about 41 africanamerican. 8. 5 latino. But the honors level track and ap level track are the privileged context in context in the school for 80 to 90 white. So less than 50 white students that the classes are of the highest classes in school were predominantly white and so people in the Community Talk about the fact when you come into school with people in the hallways and you see them talking to each other they go to their classes and go separate ways and you can walk down the hall and see the difference between the regular class that is latino and honors a placement class where most of the white students find themselves. What was one other finding at riverview . The other finding is we think about Parent Involvement as a positive thing and in some ways it certainly is but one of the things is the administrators and teachers in the Community Felt a lot of pressure from white parents who were powerful in the committee and those tended to be the parent of the students that were in the honors and advanced placement classes so as they try to create more equity there was a process to be referred to as opportunity hoarding that is the monopolizing of the most privileged educational context and exclusion of the people from the context so as to school and administrators try to address these disparities and class placement, what they ran into was roadblocks at every step. So as they try to limit the number of distinctions between class levels they got pushback from the parents in the and the highflying students who said things like while my kid needs to get into one of these schools and if you provide resources to those that are not doing as well youll take more away from my kid. They did things like as they tried to limit the number of distinctions of the cross course levels and create mixed level classes with honors and advanced placement there was what we called internal white flight where white parents would encourage students to migrate to classes that were prominently white, even though they may have been interested in studying another class. If you put it down as possession of them will not happen so these are some of the dead and six that occurred with the academic context dead in the disciplinary domain. Despite the best intentions what improvements to use to just to the retiring principal . One of the things we wanted to get across is teachers dont to education for the achievement gap. But they do live in a society where it permeates everything about this place across a number of the obeids where you have people organizing it weighs to reduce racial inequality but the day today did ambac that is how it did avestan self of the subconscious level where people act on racial beliefs. Those are some of the on mechanisms for the expectations of black students. That is what led to discipline referrals and that cumulative impact over time shaped this. Host so teachers are of the front line egad. They are part of the from wide and given of what were talking for society as a whole there is a lot of things we can do to create family policies of the other safety social thats nets. But with closely battle in kong families there is a racial the idea back to be powerful new and important. Teachers are on the frontline that they have to deal with these processes politically how to respond to the community to push against that that the school is for all students to move away from the zero sub game. Host despite the best tenses. So those recommendations were were likely to be the context but for the students they need to recognize that when you are that expects less of you you have to be socialized to understand to bell bought historic gold patterns to make those in their boots for them this part despite the discrimination. Of the creation cesspools for that team astaire access education and that is hopeful to recognize that while discrimination exists that families can engage yen but that education that schools queued engaged in a face discrimination are low expectation. Host professor are there lessons that you learned that you could take all black schools and private schools. That is the back step. I am working for a number of schools in a bad is said now that had twice this year ive been at with all the principals from the School Districts to talk about graceland in the quality. With those opportunities every sandy quality and how do we engage in and practices . But were moving from a the book itself and i am excited about that work. Where did you grow up . Back agribiz beyonce michigan. In my cage will experience kate through 12 experience i was behind those from life where i was not allowed to go to certain places and racial dynamics and i also hit the sweet spot with the integration of the highschool and how we can get along with each other but we were all the unstable environment. But in these apartments what is working well . With productive places in a democratic society. Host despite the best intentions. They give their batch. I decided i wanted to learn how cars worked. It had a huge expanse with the v8 engine. I knew how to called bassoon and check the oil and that was it. At every day you need to go. So i tried to your ticket course at the local high school. That i never understood the beating. And also driving down the canyon roads did you talk so i ask you said what is the casket . The teacher looked like a usedcar salesman. Piston and carburetor. There is some grammarian terms. He was the kind of writer who had no exact ocean. To understand how language works you have to join the eight steed riches in a way to see how their work together. Just between you and me i suffered in the language stutters when he tries to gain my trust tuesday between you and i. But when a character complains its just not right with you and i together. Made the edits the heat of the moment people phoebe is okay at home but it could not have been right in a formal setting. And then tear devote a call into you and i did it is a grammatical error. To silence refined but this kinda thing occurs all the time and did jilted ed norton if he says the order reserve them for teddy and i. Trying to show his superiority is not the most articulate. By putting the other person first they had let word order trick them. First let us praise the impasse or the emotionally damaged from the movie all humbling themselves nobody would have a conversation between i and you. But even putting eye ailment sally together to say we have already reserved that for my girl. church decided it wanted to share restore with the people across the country so i wrote the book. I did not write it traditionally. I emails it they used to call me the egovernor. And give out my email address and i gave it to anybody who wanted to talk to be. And they did. [laughter] people across the state to read their stories sometimes they ask questions or for help onetimeonly be in south floridas send me email to say i have a raccoon in my attic. [laughter] what you going to do about it . I called the forest city manager and i said to have an elderly person who has a raccoon in her attic. [laughter] where you going to do about it . And by 12 00 that iraq could was out because we did have a servants heart is dead tallahassee. We got our team on in each and every day. And they always gave me their opinion and did not hold back. So i did try to you answer every email. Its not something neck could have predicted but this eight your conversation so i take my book i use my email exchange to tell about how to turn the largest states to live and work ted raise their family. [cheers and applause] eggs huge promise for the future. My book is out today on amazon. Com. I hope you enjoy it. [applause] its on the presidency of george h. W. Bush