Low-Income Housing and the Cultivation of Educational Opportunity

• In Event: 70.066 - Roundtable Session 28
  In Roundtable Session: 70.066-13 - Community Development and Collaborations

Abstract

In the wake of the Great Recession the number of families struggling to afford housing has grown rapidly throughout the United States. Despite the widespread urgency of this issue, there is an absence of scholarship in educational research about how affordable housing policy and programs affect students’ education opportunity. This study asserts that Community Development Corporations (CDCs) are under-researched organizations that may offer important insights into the relationship between housing and education for low-income children. Here, we present preliminary findings on how low-income families embedded in CDCs access and mobilize educational opportunity. These findings contribute to our understanding of how educational inequalities are created and reproduced and have important implications for housing and educational policy.

Author

• Alexis K. Bourgeois, University of Wisconsin - Madison