The Problem with Choice: How Racial Composition Continues to Shape Parents’ Perceptions of Schools

• In Event: 220 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 13. Parenting and Racial Identity

Abstract

Despite the rise of school choice programs, researchers still have only a limited understanding of how parents make educational decisions on behalf of their children. Although many surveys of school choice conclude that parents largely make their decisions based on academic indicators, it is conceivable that other factors – notably the racial composition of the school – play a role as well. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 36 parents from the greater Philadelphia area, this project interrogates how parents make educational decisions at the high school level. Though the majority of parents do discuss academic quality, race emerged as a key factor influencing parents’ perceptions of schools. In total, remarks about the racial composition of the school emerged unprompted in a third of interviews. Furthermore, while black parents were far more likely to see diversity as an asset, white families were more likely to voice concerns about diversity. While some were explicit about these concerns, others used coded language to express their apprehensions, prefacing their statements with caveats such as “I’m not racist, but…” These findings suggest that nearly sixty years after Brown v. Board, race remains an important part of how school decisions are made. These individual choices may also have cumulative effects that influence the demographic composition of schools, and imply that even if school options were made more widely available – the implicit goal of charter and magnet schools – this may not necessarily lead to greater school equity, and could instead intensify racial inequalities.

Author

• Sigrid Willa Luhr, University of California-Berkeley