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The Urban Review

, Volume 49, Issue 1, pp 72–95 | Cite as

So It “Became White Activists Fighting for Integration?” Community Organizations, Intersectional Identities, and Education Reform

  • Carrie R. Sampson
Article
First Online:

Abstract

Community-based organizations have long influenced education reforms, and urban areas are especially vulnerable to community work that transcends racial and economic boundaries. The purpose of this study is to explore how The League of Women Voters of Las Vegas Valley, a mostly White, middle-upper-class women’s organization, worked to pursue one of the most prominent urban education reforms in the last half century—school desegregation. Using interview and archival data, this historical case study is theoretically framed by various critical constructs to examine how the organization’s racial and economic privileges, and in some cases oppression, coupled with gendered systems of patriarchy and misogyny, influenced the process and outcomes of school desegregation reform in Las Vegas between 1966 and 1972. The organization’s intersectional identities afforded them unique opportunities and barriers. Nevertheless, they ultimately compromised on an inequitable policy that burdened Black children and their families for close to 20 years. These findings suggest that the intersectional identities of organizations can both empower and hinder community engagement in education reform. Because interests often diverge, organizations undertaking education reform should do the collective work necessary to address unintended policy consequences of education reform efforts.

Keywords

Community organizing Educational equity School desegregation Critical race feminism Critical race theory Historical case study 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

I thank Dr. Sonya Douglass Horsford for her expertise and leadership on the larger project that this study stems from as well as her valuable advice on this paper. I would also like to thank Dr. Krystyna Stave, Dr. Anita Tijerina Revilla, and Dr. Lynn Comella, all of whom provided generous feedback throughout the development of this study and this paper. Finally, I am grateful for the generosity of The Spencer Foundation for funding the larger project on school desegregation in Las Vegas which provided the opportunity to collect part this of study’s data.

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© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Mary Lou Fulton Teachers CollegeArizona State UniversityTempeUSA

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