Elementary School Choice: How Low-Income Parents Frame Their School Decisions

• In Event: 77.057 - MTCC Roundtable Session 35
  In Roundtable Session: 77.057-3 - Conscious Consumers? Parent Perceptions of Choice Across Race, Class, and Gender

Abstract

Given the dominance of residentially-based school assignment, prior researchers have conceptualized parent’s enrollment decisions as a one-dimensional process based on school preferences and values. This paper interrogates the continued relevance of this assumption by studying the behavior of parents tasked with making school decisions under open enrollment elementary school choice in New York City. Drawing on structured interviews with 42 low-income parents, I find that parents approached school decision-making using contrasting approaches. I elaborate frame analysis theory by showing how parents used their primary frameworks to orient their school decision-making. Parents do so intuitively-- by drawing on first impressions and visual signs, inclusively-- by seeking school advice, and incisively-- by employing systematic efforts to apply to schools and secure admission.

Author

• Bailey Brown, Columbia University