The Education Trap

Schools and the Remaking of Inequality in Boston

Harvard University Press, 2021

Winner of the IPUMS USA 2021 Research Award and co-winner of the Harvard University Press Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize for best first book

“Does education always bring more equality? Not necessarily: sometimes education is used to legitimize unfair inequality in pay and power and to promote a pseudomeritocratic and deeply inegalitarian ideology. By looking at early-twentieth-century Boston, this fascinating book teaches a lesson about today: a more equitable society requires a fight for justice, not only in education, but in the workplace and in the tax system.”—Thomas Piketty, author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century

“Challenging conventional wisdom, Cristina Groeger shows how increased educational opportunities can reinforce inequality when political and social elites deploy credentialism to generate new occupational hierarchies based on gender, race, ethnicity, class, and citizenship. Her probe of Boston a century ago uncovers the deeper historical roots of the ‘education trap.’”—Eileen Boris, author of Making the Woman Worker: Precarious Labor and the Fight for Global Standards, 1919–2019

“Groeger challenges America’s central myth that education can substantially counteract social and economic inequality. This subtle, finely grained analysis of Boston schools and economic development from the Gilded Age to World War II offers a provocative rereading of social class, technological innovation, and racial and gender differentiation in the nation’s public and private classrooms.”—Leon Fink, author of The Long Gilded Age: American Capitalism and the Lessons of a New World Order

“This exquisite book forces us to question one of our most firmly held assumptions: that education is the pathway to equality. Through a closely told history of Boston, Groeger’s work compels us social scientists, historians, and the public to rethink our vision of how to achieve a more equitable society.”—Shamus Khan, author of Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School

 
 

Data

The quantitative backbone of The Education Trap is historical census data. Click here for more details about how I used and visualized this data in the book.

Virtual Book Tour:

March 12, 2021

Harvard Book Store

12pm EST with Nick Juravich

View Recording here

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April 13, 2021

UMass Boston

3pm EST with Tara Parker and Nick Juravich

View Recording here

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April 22, 2021

Labor & Working-Class History Association

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April 23, 2021

Harvard Graduate School of Education

12pm EST with Tony Jack and Eddie Cole

View Recording here

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May 18th

Pilsen Community Books

7pm CST with Jon Shelton

View Recording here

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May 25th

History of Education Society Book Club

7pm-9pm EST

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June 14 Massachusetts Historical Society

5:30pm EST with Michael Glass

View Recording here

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June 23rd Boston Public Library / WGBH Forum Network

6pm EST with Hilary Moss

View recording here

Oct. 21, 2021 History and Education Colloquium - Teachers College, Columbia University

5:30pm ET

Feb. 16, 2022 “Facing Savage Inequalities” Speaker Series - Northeastern University

12pm ET

 

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