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The public and constitutional debate over affirmative action has focused on the justice of the policy, obscuring an equally central debate over which groups are to be included. The American historical context of racial injustice has led courts, scholars, and citizens alike to entrench a restrictive black-and-white categorization of race that has incorporated the other "official minorities" partially and incoherently. The rise of mixed-race identity and multiculturalism discourse have at once strengthened the foundations of the racial justice policy agenda and exposed the contradictions of this very policy agenda. This paper analyzes the "who" question of affirmative action (that is, how do universities and governments go about deciding who the recipients of affirmative action will be?) and how one strand of "colorblind" entrepreneurs is beginning to contradictions in who is and isn't counted as affirmative action beneficiaries. The paper updates the existing research on affirmative action's racial classifications by examining the Supreme Court's 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger decisions on affirmative action at the University of Michigan along with the Court's 2007 Parents v. Seattle decision on voluntary school integration policies. I argue that the increased attention to the "who" question exposes affirmative action's legal vulnerabilities. The "social construction of race" analysis has the potential to wound affirmative action policy from not only those who want to bolster affirmative action and school integration policies but also from those who want to dismantle them. Supporters of affirmative action are partly responsible for this vulnerability. The taken-for-granted, quiet method by which affirmative action beneficiaries were casually expanded via bureaucratic channels leaves gaping contradictions waiting to be exploited by critics of affirmative action. On the other hand, pro-affirmative action legal entrepreneurs have insulated affirmative action well from its predicted demise thus far by rooting the policy in the diversity rationale. The constitutional status of affirmative action and school integration policies may be at a crossroads. The diversity rationale has thus far insulated affirmative action from its predicted demise before the Supreme Court. The Court's continuing scrutiny of affirmative action policy methods has paradoxically bred new strains of affirmative action that appear to be resistant to judicial attack. Whether the same is the case for school integration policy remains to be seen. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We begin our analysis of queer issues and democratic education by exploring political theorist Shane Phelan?s analysis of the normative definitions of citizenship, which she asserts exclude gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered people from full citizenship status. This analysis reveals the extent to which full citizenship can be denied even if liberal rights exist, and thus emphasizes how critical cultural transformation is to glbt, or queer, citizenship. After discussing Phelan?s argument, we explore the work of two political theorists who wish to justify and define the role of the state in educating liberal democratic citizens in a multicultural society. Although each argues that the state has an important role in play, neither is able to de-center masculine and parental prerogatives in the way that is necessary for queer citizenship. If the state is to guarantee that students develop into the autonomous adults necessary for liberal democratic society, it must define its educational interest in ways that challenge sexism and homophobia. This argument is strengthened by reading political theory with both critical education theory and sociological and anthropological studies of schools. Because it focuses on the patterns in schools that tend to reproduce inequalities, critical education theory is highly suggestive of the broad critical lens that must be brought to explorations of queer citizenship in education. Researchers who spend significant amounts of time in schools observing and talking with young people and teachers are able to capture the regularities, on many levels, that reproduce social norms, and the conflicts which result when they are contested. Educational researchers also can see and document young people?s agency, even at quite subtle levels that typical indicators of school process ignore, and they can describe how youth interactions function to reproduce or resist dominant norms. Although critical education research is highly suggestive about the relationship between the processes it documents and analyzes at local levels, and the manner in which such processes sediment to become part of socioeconomic hegemonies, this research often fails to consider consequences in terms of wider discussions of liberalism, citizenship, and youth development. Our aim is to make some tentative connections along these lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No federal legislation has directly and effectively addressed the need to educate all children who reside in the United States. One group whose needs are often not met is students with the greatest potential for high academic achievement, often referred to as academically "gifted." Clearly, the needs of gifted students are no more important than disabled, under-privileged, or simply average students. This paper, however, will focus on the need to educate gifted students because of the perceived and real trade-offs between their education and the education of students identified by federal legislation as at risk. Based on this example, we will demonstrate that the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), in the absence of adequate funding and other comprehensive federal policies to address the education of all students, has forced trade-offs between those children whose needs are perceived as more or less worthy. Further, this paper maintains that the dominant liberal-egalitarian understanding of liberalism, as instituted in the NCLB, impedes a full appreciation for the educational needs of all children and, thus, contributes to the stigmatization of disabled, poor, and low-performing students. By contrast, this paper argues that a public ethic of care is a superior lens through which to assess and respond to the educational needs of diverse populations of children. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author focuses on the expectations of American Government students and also shares advice for teaching American Government in Texas.