Cultural Processes in the Educational and Political Displacement of Marginalized Families in a Gentrifying Context

• In Event: 41.084 - Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: 41.084-12 - Playing at the Fault Line: Segregation and Challenges to Promoting Equity Through Educational Policies

Abstract

Using an ethnographic approach, this study explores how gentrification and the cultural processes of racialization and stigmatization interact to shape educational opportunity and the political engagement or displacement of black and Latino families in a school district undergoing demographic changes. Analysis of archival documents, interviews, and field notes from observations of parent engagement meetings indicate that, through the construction of social and spatial boundaries based on categorical distinctions and stigmatized identities, families from marginalized backgrounds are pushed out of high-quality district schools and parental advocacy groups. This study demonstrates that, despite institutionalized diversity initiatives within some organizations, identification-based cultural processes have the power to stifle efforts to engage parents from traditionally marginalized backgrounds.

Author

• Daphne M. Penn, Harvard University