The Cultural Politics of School Choice: Teachers Organizing for School Integration

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Rethinking Racial Equity, Access, and Curriculum in the Era of Selective Banning (Table 38)

Abstract

This study examines how a group of teachers navigate, challenge, and co-construct enrollment
policies and the social construction of good schools in the context of their school integration organizing efforts. To understand how teachers organize for integration and the tensions they navigate in policies and politics through the process, we draw on cultural politics (Hall, 1996; Leonardo, 2010). We utilize a qualitative case study to analyze teachers’ organizing for integration at Cedar Secondary School (CSS) in Oakland, California. Through in-depth interviews, observations, and document analysis of the teacher organizing group and community forums with majority white and/or privileged parents, we examine the relationship between ideologies, assumptions, and concerns that participants bring to and navigate around school choice enrollment plans.

Authors

• Talia S. Leibovitz, University of California - Berkeley

• Joy Esboldt, University of Delaware