Black Lives Matter in US Schools

A powerful anthology on the role of curricula in perpetuating—and resisting—oppression.

Winner of the 2023 Outstanding Book Award presented by the Division B of the American Educational Research Association

Black Lives Matter in US Schools critically examines the relationship between schooling and sociocultural abolitionist movements such as #BlackLivesMatter. Aligning with a long history of education scholars who have insisted on the enmeshed nature of schools and society, the book addresses the role of various forms of curricula that perpetuate anti-Blackness while simultaneously shaping Black ways of being, knowing, and doing. While its focus tends toward issues of normalized violence, Black Lives Matter in US Schools is equally concerned with possibilities for justice stemming from curricular change and affects like hope and love that are central to radical acts of resistance to oppression. Themes range from critical literacies to IQ tests, from Afro-surrealism to historiography, as the book strategically tacks between traditional forms of qualitative and quantitative research and more personal narratives. Black Lives Matter in US Schools speaks powerfully against the continued onslaught of inequities in schools and their communities, working to create space for forms of learning that are responsible to and for Black lives.

Boni Wozolek is Assistant Professor of Education at Pennsylvania State University, Abington. She is the author of Assemblages of Violence in Education: Everyday Trajectories of Oppression.