School Choice Among Chinese- and Spanish-Speaking Parents: Pursuing "Truth" and Counternarratives From Underrepresented Families

• In Event: Tensions and Complexities: How Policy Actors Navigate, Reproduce, and/or Disrupt Inequities in U.S. School Choice Contexts

Abstract

This year’s AERA conference theme calls for research in pursuit of truth that “matters in public policy and practice” and engages in dialogue with local communities. To that end, this paper aims to inform a school choice policy in partnership with San Francisco Unified School District by capturing the voices, perspectives, and experiences of parents who are typically overlooked in school choice research. Grounded in the tenet of counter-storytelling and drawing on 24 in-depth interviews with Chinese- and Spanish-speaking parents who engaged in the district’s new school choice policy in 2021, this paper seeks to understand parents’ access to information, their school-selection priorities, and how their underlying beliefs about schools may influence how they engage in school choice.

Authors

• Adriana Villavicencio, University of California - Irvine
  Presenting Author

• Tiffany Wu, University of California - Irvine
  Presenting Author

• Verenisse Ponce Soria, University of California - Irvine
  Presenting Author