Race and Cultural Capital

The U.S. public education system is staffed by predominantly white teachers and administrators. Over 83 percent of teachers and administrators in public schools with less than 50 percent of students eligible for free/reduced lunch are Caucasian. Most of public school faculty are of middle social class given their education and income level. Thus, in U.S. academic settings, the dominant culture is one of white, middle class. This may prove problematic for students from diverse backgrounds or lower social class.

Race, which is the phenotypical manifestation of centuries of adaptation of humans to differences in geography, is often recognized as the physical characteristics an individual possesses. Racial identity is the meaning that people create in response to social experiences as members of a group that share similar ...