Drawing on interdisciplinary research, the book demonstrates that black boys encounter challenges and barriers that funnel them toward failure rather than developmental success. Their example exposes a broader reality of hierarchies among children, linked to government policies, practices, structures, and institutions. Dowd argues for a new legal model of developmental equality, grounded in the real challenges that children face on the basis of race, gender, and class.
Concluding with a “New Deal” for all children, Reimagining Equality provides a comprehensive set of policies that enables our political and legal systems to dismantle what harms and discriminates children, and maximize their development.