ABSTRACT
Previous chapters have demonstrated the recurrence of many factors and practices that reinforce and perpetuate racial and ethnic inequality in schools in the United States. They also presented and suggested some alternatives that would counter those effects. Bart Landry criticizes tracking as a response to diversity and in the projection of increasing diversity calls for implementation of multicultural pedagogy and curriculum and the training of teachers to respond to multicultural populations. Aaron Thompson and Reid Luhman point to the failure of higher educational institutions in facilitating educational attainment of African Americans and the need for those institutions to improve their recruitment and retention practices. Hugh Mehan believes schools can be transformative in moving from untracking to detracking but they must find ways to institutionalize support structures and processes as well as to expand the populations served by those programs. Mehan thinks that more time needs to be focused on academic subjects by extending the school day or year or both. Time can be also used more effectively through cooperative learning, inquirybased instruction, authentic curriculum and use of student experience as a classroom resource. Luis Moll and Norma Gonzalez clearly concur on the value of student experience. It is part of thenagenda for future research. Their current work strongly demonstrates the funds of knowledge in family households that have classroom utility. Beyond content, they show the benefits of collaboration between university researchers and educational
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