Deculturalization and the Struggle for Equality

Joel Spring’s history of school policies imposed on dominated groups in the United States examines the concept of deculturalization—the use of schools to strip away family languages and cultures and replace them with those of the dominant group. The focus is on the education of dominated groups forced to become citizens in territories conquered by the United States, including Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, Latino Americans, and Hawaiians.

In seven concise, thought-provoking chapters, this analysis and documentation of how education is used to change or eliminate linguistic and cultural traditions in the United States looks at the educational, legal, and social construction of race and racism in the United States, emphasizing the various meanings of “equality” that have existed from colonial America to the present. Providing a broader perspective for understanding the denial of cultural and linguistic rights in the United States, issues of language, culture, and deculturalization are placed in a global context.

Revised throughout to reflect the national events and shifts in the field since the prior edition, the 10th Edition includes updated discussion around race and its impacts on college campuses, exploration of the refugee crises, new material on Native American, Alaskan, and Hawaiian boarding schools, and expanded discussion of debates over cultural and racial identity.