Taking What Is Left: How District Leaders and Community Members Construct School Closures and Communities

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Fractured Narratives, Contested Policies: Critical Analyses of Power in Education

Abstract

This paper interrogates public district narratives surrounding school closures, probing the interplay between the racialized social construction of neighborhoods and schools, closure justifications, and resulting repurposing and programming decisions. We ask how the public conceptualizes neighborhood and school identities and negotiates value as experts and agents in their communities. We situate the study in Jackson, Mississippi where, spring 2024, the Jackson Public Schools (JPS) board voted to close 13 of the district’s 42 schools. Informed by research demonstrating how school closure reifies racial capitalist structures through the racialization of space and using methodologies of critical policy analysis and counternarrative, we ask: How do community members connect closure decisions to their social and political positioning in relation to local policymakers?

Authors

• Tia R. Williams, Vanderbilt University

• Kathryn James McGraw, Vanderbilt University