Navigating Choice and Inequity: Family Agency and Structural Constraints in Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 1:45 pm - Gold 3

Session Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract

This panel explores how families navigate educational systems shaped by choice policies and persistent inequities. Across studies of education savings accounts, racialized school choice decision-making, pre-K access disparities, and learning pods, the papers center families’ strategies, constraints, and aspirations as they seek opportunity, safety, and culturally affirming environments. Together, the research illuminates how race, disability, geography, and systemic barriers structure educational choices, revealing both the agency of caregivers and the limits of market-based reforms. The panel offers nuanced insights into how families experience, interpret, and respond to policy landscapes that promise opportunity but often reproduce inequality.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Charters & School Choice

Chair

• Chrystal S. Johnson, Purdue University

Papers

• Accessing opportunity: Children with disabilities, their families, and Education Savings Accounts - Georgia Heyward, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Against an Anti-Black Racist Schooling Landscape: Racialized Risk Assessments in Black Families’ School Choice - De'Ja Wood, Vanderbilt University

• Geographic Disparities in Access to Affordable, High-Quality Prekindergarten Across Indiana - Jiyeon Lee, Ball State University; Jin Lee, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

• Unschooling the System: Learning Pods, Family Choice, and the Rewriting of Educational Futures - Stacy-Ann Campbell, Louisiana State University; Veysel Altunel, Louisiana State University; Henderson Lewis Jr., Louisiana State University