Marginalized Children's Perceptions of Neighborhoods in School Choice: The Case of Canada

• In Event: Market Mechanisms and Education Inequities: Experiences From Chile, India, South Africa, Canada, and the United States

Abstract

Critical geographies of school choice elucidate the significance of neighborhood divisions and senses of belonging in school choice practices and outcomes; yet, the focus of research has been largely on parents’ perspectives (Bell, 2009; Lipman, 2011; Yoon & Gulson, 2010). The objective of this presentation is to expand this scholarship by exploring the perspective of marginalized children. We argue this is an important area to advance because school choice has been advocated as a means for improving the schooling needs and experiences of disadvantaged students, even though few researchers have examined students’ experiences and meanings (Ndimande & Lubienski, 2017).
Drawing from urban geography and children’s geography, this paper applies critical theories of neighborhood as a place that is layered with classed and racial meanings and that has varying degrees of belonging within a small geographic area surrounding one’s residence (Brower, 1996; Cahill, 2000; Cope, 2008; Kearns & Parkinson, 2001; Martin, 2003). Also, we draw on children’s notion of neighborhood as more localized than that of adults, and argue that the neighborhood plays an important role in children’s daily lives because they spend considerable time there (Christensen, Mikkelsen, Nielsen, & Harder, 2011; Cope, 2008).
We use a mental mapping methodology as a fresh approach to school choice studies. This approach taps into children’s visualization of a geographical area as they remember it and helps us understand their everyday feelings about a particular place and their school neighborhoods (Ellis, Hetherington, Lovell, McConaghy, & Viczko, 2013). We used the technique with 40 marginalized children (K-G12) from two major cities in Canada, where school choice is expanding (Lubienski & Yoon, 2017).
The children’s maps illustrate the prominence of home and their home neighborhoods in their everyday lives, as places that give them comfort and a sense of safety and well-being. The maps also illuminate how marginalized children create intimate relationships with(in) their neighborhoods. Their maps thus highlight that choosing schools outside their home neighborhoods works against their need for spatial comfort and belonging. Children expressed strong emotions when they said they did not want to attend a school where they did not know anybody. In other words, the notion of school choice is challenging for the children, not only because of the physical distance they would have to travel to attend schools outside their neighborhoods, but also because of the affective distance that they would experience emotionally. We thus conclude that more choices be made available in the neighborhoods where children live, rather than having them travel elsewhere to attend schools.
The significance of this study is that when assessing the impact of school choice policy and discussing its future directions, it is important to recognize children’s perspectives because their lived meanings can inform us of what is critical to their schooling experiences. In particular, this study highlights the centrality of spatial well-being for children in schooling and in the process of considering school choice.

Authors

• Ee-Seul Yoon, University of Manitoba

• Mei Po Kwan, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign