The Science and Law of School Segregation and Diversity

An empirical look at the U.S legal system's effectiveness in addressing school segregation reveals that segregation persists and even surpasses levels experienced before the Civil Rights Movement. Yet, lawmaking continues as though segregation is a thing of the past. The negative effects of racial and ethnic disparities in schooling are well documented, but legal analysts increasingly interpret the law as a system that operates independently of research findings clearly pointing to disparities. For their part, researchers continue to document experiences of segregation without considering the legal system's basic concerns.

The Science and Law of School Segregation and Diversity examines the sources of the disconnect between scientific findings on school segregation and how the U.S. legal system addresses it; evaluates these sources' empirical and legal foundations; explains why they persist; and reveals what can be done about them. Roger Levesque, a scholar with expertise in children's rights, family law, and adolescence, provides an overview of how the legal system approaches inequality based on racial/ethnic status. He presents an analysis of the empirical findings relating to the implementation of laws that would address racial disparities in schooling and educational outcomes. Finally, Levesque challenges jurisprudential claims that the developmental sciences do not offer important and useful tools to guide responses to differential treatment and circumstances based on race. This book will appeal to individuals interested in legal responses to schooling's place in society, discrimination, diversity, inequality, and more broadly, civil rights. The text will also appeal to developmentalists interested in prejudice, discrimination, and social development, and researchers, scholars, and students in law and psychology, law and education, law and human development, and law and society.

Roger J.R. Levesque, JD, PhD, is a professor of criminal justice in the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University and professor of law at Maurer School of Law. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence as well as Adolescent Research Review. He is an award winning author of over a dozen books, most recently Adolescents, Discrimination, and the Law and Adolescence, Privacy, and the Law: A Developmental Science Perspective.