Final Project Proposal

I am choosing option 3 which is as follows:

Choose a particular practice, policy, or educational discourse that is dominant or popular that impacts your work/field and write a critical analysis of it using ideas and arguments from at least three readings. A critical analysis considers how the object of investigation in your paper reinforces existing power relations and inequities, whether intentionally or unintentionally doesn’t matter. We’re concerned with impact. It asks Who benefits from this? Who harmed? How and Why?

I am choosing to investigate the education model of "intentional diversity". I work at Blackstone Valley Prep High School and our school is set up to be intentionally diverse. Blackstone Valley Prep is charter school trying a new system of education by bringing together students from different cities of Rhode Island (2 urban and 2 suburban) together in an intentional diverse school setting. By implementing this charter, we are actively going against the normal education system, but what are some inequities in the new system we have created? This topic directly affects my work and the students that I interact with. 

While writing my critical analysis I will use personal experience with caution to not get lost in storytelling. I will also use the reading, Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria by Tatum in order to analyze how "intentional diversity" could be used ineffectively and students call still associate with people of their like identities. I will also use some aspects of the Indian Boarding Schools by Bollinger to prove the point that lumping students of like identities and teaching them a white washed curriculum is not appropriate because of the possibility of deculturization. I also will touch on the idea that even though you are lumping together students coming from families of different race, ethnicity and income, there are still systematic things that have white people (especially white males) at an advantage. To help get this point across, I want to refer to the video called "The Unequal Opportunity Race".

"Intentional diversity" is going to be an interesting topic to analyze because the intention is clear and explicit. The impact will vary by implementation. The goal is for everyone to benefit and for no one to be harmed. The big question will be, "Does this actually work?". I will analyze my school and what works, and try to think of what could make it better.