“You’re Really Targeting My Kid”: Racial Difference in Black and White Mothers’ Schooling Logics

• In Event: 2166 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 3: Schooling & Race

Abstract

Homeschooling is an increasingly common schooling option for middle-class black families, yet is often overlooked in race and education research. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 67 middle-class black and white parents living in one northeastern metropolitan area – half of whom homeschool, while a second set send their children to conventional school – the author examines how race influences parents’ decisions to homeschool. Across school type, black middle-class parents use “black strategic schooling” logics to explain their decisions. They describe experiences of racial discrimination in predominately white classrooms led them to bring home or transfer their child to a different school. In contrast, white parents use “white strategic schooling” logics to explain their decisions. They describe their child’s learning or behavioral needs as what drove their schooling decision, placing their child in predominately white academic settings, while many seek racially diverse non-academic settings. The findings build on racial theory by examining the racialization of school choice through homeschooling. The comparison across black and white families shows how school choice displaces addressing systemic racism by schools onto black mothers, who end up managing it on their own by homeschooling or transferring schools. While white parents reflect the privilege of whiteness by using colorblind logics to avoid considering race in their schooling choices. The findings suggest the continued significance of race within parents’ schooling logics.

Author

• Mahala Dyer Stewart, Hamilton College