y, not institutional bias and discrimination. The data tell a different story, however. For when all such cases are added up over a long period of time, it becomes all too clear that, roughly put, 'less education plus right background gives greater access than more education plus wrong background'" (235-236).
De Castell offers the view that diversity from societal norms will most likely never be welcomed by public schools because they are state-supported institutions. She succinctly demonstrates the problem by noting that "as a state-supported 'institution,' education is controlled, ultimately, by the state. The survival of the present public system, then, would seem to depend on its 'usefulness' to state power-holders. If and when the public school failed, by accident, or by intent, to support the state, its continuance would be in jeopardy" (235).
A history of racial and cultural bias has threatened liberal efforts at educational social reform. As De Castell has noted, even liberals may have unintentionally perpetuated the hierarchical status system that allows the dominant culture to dictate educational policy and expectations. For example, if schools started turning out more female than male mathematicians, scientists, and engineers, the state, and thus schools, would no doubt be alarmed by this trend. A minority of women engineers are an anomaly, an exception in spite of societal norms. In other words, token women engineers are not an anomalous turn; however, relative to sexism in education, De Castell observes, "too many successful women threaten the (covert) ideology of male superiority" (233). Other ominous tendencies can be observed.
Sometimes racial and cultural bias is internalized. The black teacher who despises and prohibits the use of black dialect in his or her classroom is displaying internalized racism and cultural bias. "Teachers who insist on 'proper' and civilized' (upper-class) language, behavio...