“In the spirit of equality”: Conflict, dissonance, and the potential for transformative educational change

This chapter explores the history of school desegregation in Shaker Heights, Ohio, an inner-ring suburban school district bordering the city of Cleveland. During particular periods of community conflict and institutional unease, parents, students, and educators pressed their school district to attend to racial isolation and inequality of opportunity and outcomes for African American students. Additionally, student narratives of psychological dissonance raised questions about the role of the institution and the broader social context contributing to these inequalities. Given the influence of psychological conflict on an individual’s understanding of racial inequality, what role might institutional conflict play in creating possibilities for systemic change? The purpose of this chapter is to extend the study of individual psychological dissonance to the institutional level of analysis within the context of suburban school desegregation. To what extent does institutional conflict provide possibilities for change in the same manner that psychological conflict creates change at the individual level?