Choosing the Charter: Parents’ Perspectives on the Shifting Meaning of Public Education

• In Event: Parental Choices

Abstract

In this study I consider the contested meaning of public education through a constructivist qualitative investigation of Patrick Henry School of Science and Arts, a charter elementary school in Richmond, Virginia. Data for this analysis come from 16 semi-structured interviews with a maximum variation sample of parents of students at the school. The following research question guides this study: How do parents of students at Patrick Henry construct the meanings of public education? The findings of the study show how the meanings of public education were often negotiated by parents in ways that complicate the distinction between the public and private spheres.

Author

• Jesse Senechal, Virginia Commonwealth University