Tracking--the system of grouping students for instruction on the basis of ability--reflects the class and racial inequalities of American society and helps to perpetuate them. Fifa 14 Latest Roster Update. In the junior and senior high schools studied, there were clear differences between upper and lower tracks in: (1) content and quality of instruction, (2) teacher-student and student-student relationships, (3) expectations of teachers for their students, and (4) affective climate of classrooms. After chapters presenting the destructive and unfair consequences of tracking, this book discusses the findings within the context of far-ranging differences in student educational attainment. It then attempts to reconcile the persistence of tracking in a society which purports to be committed to equitable quality education for all. It concludes with suggestions for more equitable methods of structuring learning.

School tracking, or the seemingly less aggressive 'ability grouping,' is a major contributor to educational inequality. We're not often pressed to think about it -- it's just a given characteristic of schooling -- but Oakes forces her reader to think it through, and the empirical evidence provides the proof to our suspicions that schooling, as are many of our social institutions, is systemically racist and classist.