Student Perspectives on Educational Opportunity Distribution in a Competitive Choice District

• In Event: Roundtable Session 53
  In Roundtable Session: School Choice Policies and Their Consequences

Abstract

As students encounter school choice policies that require them to compete for access to academically selective schooling options, they are simultaneously developing their own ideas about educational opportunity for themselves and others. This longitudinal, comparative case study, which uses Stephen Ball and colleagues’ policy enactment theory as a framework, investigates how 36 students in a competitive school choice policy district (Chicago) came to understand and act upon the distribution of educational opportunities. Participants interpreted educational opportunity as something that is neither equally nor fairly distributed, and translated that understanding into self-protective, individual-oriented actions. Implications for the extension of policy enactment theory and for school choice policies’ impact on youth civic development are addressed.

Authors

• Kate L. Phillippo, Loyola University Chicago

• Briellen Elizabeth Griffin, Loyola University Chicago