Gentrification and Public Schools: Comparing Residential Socioeconomic Composition and Public School Enrollments, 2009-2014

• In Event: 2484 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 14. Neighborhoods and Education

Abstract

When considering education, many urban planners and local policymakers assume that the results of gentrification will accrue as benefits within the public schools (Cuchiarra, 2013). This paper reviews contemporary theorizing about the implications of gentrification for historically underserved, low-income urban residents and then asks the question—what does gentrification mean for public school enrollments? Using data from the American Community Survey of 2009 and 2014, as well as school-district-level data from the National Center for Education Statistics, this project looked at school districts in the 20 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S. and, by operationalizing gentrification through an index, identified those school districts that have experienced the greatest degree of socioeconomic ascent, or gentrification, over that timeframe. Somewhat surprisingly, in those areas that showed the greatest evidence of gentrification from 2009 to 2014, the proportions of low-income students enrolled in the public schools actually increased. One possible explanation for the finding is that affluent individuals in-movers simply bypassed the traditional public schools in favor of other options such as charter schools or private schools. Alternatively, the findings may suggest that affluent in-movers were largely childless, and that their movement into these school districts placed displacement pressure (Marcuse, 1985) on residents with children, moving a larger number of them into poverty by 2014. Further exploration is needed to develop a more precise hypothesis about the mechanisms that caused the increase in poverty among students enrolled in the public schools. This study however, speaks to the need for critical interrogations of policymakers’ and urban planners’ assumptions about the potential for gentrification to improve social goods such as public education, especially for historically underserved incumbent urban residents.

Author

• Jennifer Carol LaFleur, Brandeis University