Ambiguity as Opportunity and Constraint: Evolution of a Federal Sex Equity Education Program

Abstract

From the 1960s to the early 1980s educational equity was an important focus for schools, supported by initiatives undertaken by the federal government. This paper takes the position that equity programs developed during that period were suffused with ambiguities, which both aided and hindered the evolution of viable definitions and demonstrations of educational equity. The paper focuses on the National Sex Equity Demonstration Project, a 4-year, joint effort of the University of Miami and the School Board of Broward County funded by the Women’s Educational Equity Act Program. This project was characterized by uncertainty in goals, technologies, roles, relationships, structures, interpretations, and outcomes. The work of March, Cohen, and Olsen on educational systems as organized anarchies is drawn upon extensively to provide a theoretical base for the analysis. The project evaluation conducted by Robert and Bernadine Stake is helpful in illuminating the experience. The paper concludes that the project made a modest but important contribution to the definition of educational equity.