The educational achievement gap in the United States highlights the disparities of various forms of access, support, opportunities, treatment and attention across lines of race and socioeconomic status. It is well understood that, on a national level, white students preform better in school than their black classmates based off of test scores, enrollment in advanced classes and graduation rates (see hereand here). This understanding has harsh implications that may lead to the manifestation of particular biases that could potentially foster the maintenance of the achievement gap (see here, hereand here). These attitudes and biases, however statistically supported they may be, can be harmful because it leads to the notion that white culture better supports a students educational experience. This stereotype is not so easily quantifiable due to the difficulty in measuring cultural and ideological understandings of success, but one way it is made very visible is through a school’s implementation and enforcement of dress codes, which has become a highly contested issue covered by major media outlets.
In 2017, at Mystic Valley Charter School, north of Boston, two young black girls were removed from class for wearing hair extensions. When the sisters refused to remove the extensions they were unable to continue to participate in their extracurricular activities, banned from attending the school’s prom and threatened with suspensions. Though the dress code bans hair extensions the enforcement of the policy only affected the black students at the school, as many of the girls’ white classmates often wore hair extensions of an assortment of different colors. At the same school, a different student was removed from class and told that she must “relax” her hair or undergo chemical straightening treatments before returning again.
Image From: https://www.thenation.com/article/hair-school-education-betsy-devos/
There are two major ways in which this school’s policies, and others like it, contribute to the achievement gap. First, it can limit academic success for those who often find themselves on the receiving end of dress code infraction discipline and secondly it reinforces harmful stereotypes of race and education that can lead to exclusion. At Mystic Valley Charter School, half of the students who are suspended are done so as a result of non-violent infractions, including dress code violations. Additionally, black students are suspended at a higher rate than white students (see here). As a result the students who are suspended are being denied access to education, making it difficult to keep up with their classmates. Without specifically naming racism, these policies very visibly and very publically target racial groups. Not only does this lower a student’s self esteem it also reinforces negative stereotypes that connect whiteness to academic success and blackness to academic failure. As schools uphold these ideologies, black students are forced to act white to conform to the United State’s educational culture. If they do, they face potential exclusion and ridicule from friends and family for the perceived rejection of culture. If they refuse they are accused of taking an “antischool” stance and face criticism from the school (see here).
One school in Huston has even begun enforcing dress codes for parents who enter the school (see here). The code prohibits parents to wear clothes that are baggy or revealing as well in addition to prohibiting pajamas, hair rollers satin caps and bonnets. Parents of the school, made up of 58% Hispanic students and 40% black students, as well as social justice advocates reacted in outrage to the policies that blatantly target non-white and poor families. Parent involvement is cited to be a critical factor of the achievement gap. White parents are more likely to be actively involved in their child’s education than black parents, which significantly impacts academic success (see hereand here). One of the key elements that cause a parent’s hesitancy in becoming involved in their child’s education is a level of discomfort and feeling unwelcome in the school. If a parent cannot financially afford to conform to these dress codes or if they feel as though their cultural identities are not valued, rather than adhering to the codes they will stop coming into the school, thus worsening the problem of parent engagement.
What the policies suggest is that there is a very specific way in which a student should identify in order to fit in at school and do well. One must perform whiteness and suppress the expressions of their own cultural identities to be successful throughout their educational endeavors. Further, administrations that argue these codes attempt to prepare students for the real world make a very bold statement that one must perform whiteness after school as well to be successful. As dress codes are written and enforced to target minority populations for not conforming to physical expressions of whiteness and wealth closing the achievement gap seems like an impossible task.