The Friendship Wedge: How School Choice Policies Fragment Peer Networks at Home

• In Event: 523 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 10. School Context and Characteristics: Session I

Abstract

Because of the rise of public school choice programs, children who share a neighborhood are increasingly going to different schools. This paper examines whether and how the conjuncture/disjuncture of neighborhood and school contexts affects the types of peer networks available to students both at school and within their residential areas.

I find that school choice amplifies the disadvantages that children face in their neighborhoods by fragmenting local adolescent community networks. The data—which consists of 74 in-depth interviews with Philadelphia public high school students who live in the same residential areas but go to different schools (i.e., local vs. nonlocal schools)—show that neighborhood and magnet school students make different decisions in how, with whom, and where they spend time. The majority of magnet school students spend their free time in activities that occur outside their local areas. These extralocal involvements mean less time spent in neighborhoods and fewer opportunities to engage with local peers. In contrast, children who go to neighborhood schools receive a higher dosage of neighborhood disadvantage than they otherwise would in the absence of school choice policies because the quality of their peer groups, both at school and at home, suffers when high-achieving students leave their local schools for magnet schools. The data thus suggest that instead of erasing educational inequities, school choice policies are further stratifying poor neighborhoods by deteriorating the quality of peer networks, not just at school but also at home.

Author

• Trinh Tran, Middlebury College