How Parents House Kids: The Impact of Residential Decisions on Children’s Education

• In Event: How Housing and Neighborhood Contexts Shape Children’s Educational Outcomes

Abstract

The How Parents House Kids study analyzes in-depth interview data from economically and racially diverse parents, including families with housing subsidies, in the Dallas and Cleveland metropolitan areas. The study explores the housing, neighborhood and school preferences of low to moderate income families and the constraints and tradeoffs they face as they try to exercise these preferences. Here, we present preliminary findings on how parents prioritize schools and other factors related to child well-being as they choose where to live and what constraints parents face as they try to provide developmentally advantageous contexts for their children. These findings contribute to our understanding of how educational inequalities are created and reproduced and have important implications for housing and educational policy.

Authors

• Stefanie A. Deluca, Johns Hopkins University

• Kathryn Edin, Harvard University

• Eva Rosen, Harvard University