School Gentrification and the Ecologies of Middle-Class Parent Engagement

• In Event: Who's Included and Excluded? Student Assignment Policies and Engagement Practices in Gentrifying and Segregated Systems

Abstract

This paper adds to the scholarship on middle-class parent engagement by exploring how the ecologies of schools and neighborhoods shape how and why these parents engage in urban schools. This analysis draws on data collected for a multi-site case study of school gentrification in Washington, D.C. to investigate how parents perceived gentrification’s impact on their schools and their engagement beliefs and strategies. Leveraging an ecological view of parent engagement, I find that parents’ understandings of the exclusionary effects of gentrification as well as their experiences and histories shaped their engagement motivations and strategies. This paper’s findings offer insights into the potential of collectively oriented parent engagement in urban schools.

Author

• Alisha Butler, Wesleyan University
  Presenting Author