Abstract
This paper examines trends in white and minority student experiences in the high schools, the community colleges, and the universities of the greater Los Angeles area since the mid-1970s. Black and Hispanic access to educational mobility is shown to have been severely hampered by high rates of dropping out of high school, by increasingly rigorous standards of admission and the high cost of attending 4-year public colleges, by the failure of community colleges in their transfer function, by the deemphasis on minority recruitment and retention programs, and by the curtailment of civil rights enforcement. To the extent that Los Angeles area trends forecast broader national patterns in our increasingly multiethnic society, the evidence from the area has fundamental national importance.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Bullock, Paul, (ed.) (1969).Watts: The Aftermath. New York: Grove Press.
California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC, 1988).Education Week, May 18.
California State Department of Education (1986). California dropouts: A status report. Sacramento: State Department of Education.
California State University, Office of Analytical Studies (1985). Those Who Stay—Phase V: Student Continuance in the California State University. (Tech. Memorandum No. 11). Long Beach: CSU.
Carmondy, Dierdie (1988, September 20). Blacks gain again in college admission test.The New York Times.
Caughey, John (1973).To Kill a Child's Spirit: The Tragedy of School Segregation in Los Angeles. Itasca, IL: Peacock.
Caughey, John, and Caughey, Laree (1966).School Segregation on our Doorstep: The Los Angeles Story. Los Angeles: Quail Books.
Chronicle of Higher Education. (1987, November 4). Table of state education budgets. P. A28.
Commission for the Review of the Master Plan for Higher Education (1986). A reassessment of the California community colleges. Background papers: The challenge of change. California State Legislature.
Espinosa, Ruben, and Ochoa, Alberta (1986). Concentration of California Hispanic students in schools with low achievement: A research note.American Journal of Education (Nov.): 77–95.
Farley, Reynolds (1978). Report to the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles,Crawford v.Board of Education.
Gifford, Bernard (1978). Report to the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles,Crawford v.Board of Education.
Guthrie, James W., and Kirst, Michael W. (1985). Conditions of education in California, 1985. Berkeley: PACE.
Guthrie, James W., et al. (1987). Conditions of education in California, 1986–87. Berkeley: PACE.
Haro, Carlos Manuel (1977). Mexicano/Chicano concerns and school desegregation in Los Angeles. Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Center.
Lee, Chang-Soo, and Wagatsuma, Hiroshi (1978). The settlement patterns of Koreans in Los Angeles. Paper presented at the Conference of Koreans—in Korea—in America—in Transition.
McWilliams, Carey (1983).Southern California: An Island on the Land. (Reporint of the 1946 ed.). Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books.
Orfield, Gary (1983).Public School Desegregation in the United States, 1968–1980. Washington, DC: Joint Center for Political Studies.
Orfield, Gary (1984). Lessons of the Los Angeles desegregation case.Education and Urban Society 16(3): 338–353.
Orfield, Gary, with Monfort, Franklin, and George, Rosemary (1987). School segregation in the 1980s: Trends in the states and metropolitan areas. University of Chicago: Metropolitan Opportunity Project.
Pitt, Leonard (1966).The Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californians, 1846–1890. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sears, David O., and McConahay, John B. (1973).The Politics of Violence: The New Urban Blacks and the Watts Riot. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
U.S. Bureau of the Census (1984, Spring). What's It worth? Educational background and economic status. (Series P-70, No. 11). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights (1981). Hearings, school desegregation. (Ninety-seventh Congress, first session.)
Wollenberg, Charles M. (1976).All Deliberate Speed: Segregation and Exclusion in California Schools, 1955–1975. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Orfield, G. Exclusion of the majority: Shrinking college access and public policy in metropolitan Los Angeles. Urban Rev 20, 147–163 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01112007
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01112007