Parents Shaping Children’s Education: School Selection in the United States

• In Event: 207 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Parental Involvement

Abstract

The unequal sorting of children into schools in the United States is a major mechanism of class reproduction, yet families’ school choice has been understudied. This study explores how families choose their children’s schools at kindergarten, the start of the school transition. We use nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) to model whether a parent seeks information about their child’s school, enrolls their child in a school other than the assigned public school, or moves to a location so that a child can attend a certain school. Results indicate a stratified system of school selection for kindergarten, with privileged families opting for elite strategies to secure educational advantages. While Black families show an increased likelihood of seeking information and enrollment in a non-assigned public school, White families are more likely to use the resource-intensive option of choosing their residential location to access a particular school. Families of higher socioeconomic status enroll their children in private schools. Policies seeking to shape the school choice process should be informed by the inherent inequalities existing within it and the disparate social forces that shape these inequalities.

Authors

• Elizabeth Lawrence, University of Colorado

• Stefanie Mollborn, University of Colorado-Boulder