This article delineates how race has been undertheorized in research on the educational experiences and outcomes of Blacks. The authors identify two dominant traditions by which researchers have invoked race (i.e., as culture and as a variable) and outline their conceptual limitations. They analyze how these traditions mask the heterogeneity of…

Gloria Ladson-Billings explains in her chapter that, in part, the promise of "Brown v. Board of Education" has not been realized because it was premised on black inferiority. She elaborates that "instead of addressing the underlying pathology of the defendant--White supremacy"--the evidence, case, and accordant ruling…