Glue or WD-40: The Role of Parent-Teachers Associations in North Carolina's Segregated Elementary Schools

• In Event: (Re)Segregation and Tracking: Problems in the Pursuit of Racial Equity

Abstract

Situating Parent-Teachers Associations in a “bridging” or “bonding” social capital framework, this study seeks to determine whether segregated schools with PTAs become more or less diverse over time. Using administrative data from North Carolina elementary schools, and panel data on the formation and dissolution of school PTAs at various resource levels, this study employs random and fixed effects models to estimate changes in the percent of white students between 1999 and 2013. The findings suggest PTAs, make segregated black schools more diverse, providing evidence of the bridging hypothesis. Notable is that PTAs impact demographic change in schools just as much, and in some case more than public school performance grade.

Authors

• Brittany Chevon Murray, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Thurston Domina, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill