Community Mobilization, Race, and the Politics of Student Assignment: Desegregating San Francisco, 1971-1983

• In Event: Roundtable Session 112
  In Roundtable Session: African American, Latino, and Native Peoples’ Experiences in the Mid-20th-Century United States

Abstract

The paper traces the political history of community mobilization in San Francisco from 1971 to 1983, during which the federal district court supervised all aspects of the school district’s student assignment policy. The paper’s principal argument is that cultural characterizations of student assignment were structured by three distinct logics of action: integration, choice, and neighborhood. These logics were stable but not fixed. Changes in the institutional environment coupled with how community stakeholders framed, understood, and shaped these logics led to transformations in student assignment policy that ultimately altered the educational experience of generations of public school students. Data are drawn primarily from archival documents, newspaper articles, and retrospective interviews with key stakeholders.

Author

• Rand Quinn, University of Pennsylvania