Seeking Educational Opportunity in Metro Detroit Suburbs: Black Youths' Perspectives on School Choice and Education (In)Equality Across the City-Suburb Divide

• In Event: 43.062 - Serving the Post-Truth Era: Black Youth's Pursuit of Educational Quality in Detroit

Abstract

Over 40 years after the Milliken v. Bradley (1974) decision, many Black Detroiters have relocated to surrounding suburbs in search of quality housing and greater educational opportunity for their children. Indeed, between 2000 and 2010, the city of Detroit had the largest Black population loss in the U.S (Frey, 2011). Historically White and discriminatory Metro Detroit suburbs like Warren and Harper Woods, among others, have seen significant growth in their Black population. However, despite increasing Black suburbanization in the Metro Detroit area, there remains stark segregation between suburbs and between neighborhoods within suburbs (Wilkinson, 2016, December 6). The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity (2008)
reports that due to high rates of racial segregation in schools and housing, “more students of color in the Detroit region are trapped in the region’s worst performing schools” (p. 3).

Considering the ways in which racial and spatial opportunity structures have both changed and endured in the Metro Detroit area, this paper centers the voices of six Black secondary-school youth attending a school located in a Detroit inner-ring suburb. Youth in this study have either relocated from Detroit to the suburb where their school is located or are participants in an inter-district transfer program. This study interrogates 1) How do Black youth’s varied academic, class, and/or spatial positionalities across the Detroit Metro region’s educational landscape shape their understandings of school choice options and opportunity across the region? And 2) How do youth’s perceptions shed light on social structures that shape educational opportunity and access for Black families and students residing in the Metro Detroit Region?

Drawing upon six in-depth interviews and informal participant observation during five months at the school of study, emerging findings highlight youths’ positive valuing of the city of Detroit. However, youth also recognize the lack of needed resources and quality secondary school options in the city. Additionally, youth emphasize that Detroit’s special admissions magnet schools are the primary quality educational option accessible to students at the secondary level in the city. However, given youths’ academic status and/or location within the metro region, magnet schools are not a viable option for many students. And finally, students recognize the role of their race and class status as shaping both their educational experiences and access to educational opportunity. Youth assert that while they have gained greater access to educational opportunity through attending their suburban school, they are still disadvantaged due to mainstream power hierarchies that privilege White students in their suburban schooling setting and predominantly White and upper-class communities across the Metro Detroit region.

Aligned with the conference theme which seeks to contest “post-truth” and unidimensional narratives, this work seeks to add nuance to the affordances and limits of Black youths’ and families’ agency as they navigate city-suburb educational divides in pursuit of greater educational opportunity. This study has implications for both policy makers and suburban school leaders seeking to promote more substantive forms of education equity and inclusion for Black students.

Author

• Dana G. Nickson, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor