Reform With Reinvestment: Hopes, Tensions, and Impacts of Gentrification in an Urban School

• In Event: 33.078 - Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 33.078-6 - Reinvestment and Displacement: Gentrification and School Segregation

Abstract

As cities across the country experience an influx of largely white and middle to upper-class residents, opportunities for a reintegration of urban schools emerge. Yet crucial challenges related to the equitable distribution of students and resources persist. This study explores the story of a group of parents committed to investing in their gentrifying neighborhood’s elementary school. They did so while also promoting reform of the school’s approach to teaching and learning by initiating a school-wide program perceived as beneficial to all students. Understanding how all stakeholders viewed these efforts—as well as the ways in which such strategies have impacted equity—is vital to ensuring that the new urban diversity also produces just and inclusive schools.

Authors

• Genevieve Parker Siegel-Hawley, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Stefani Thachik, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Kimberly Bridges, Virginia State Department of Education