Social Class in the Context of School Choice: Parents’ Participation in the High School Application Process

• In Event: 3429 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 26. School Choice

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze parents’ participation in the high school selection process to understand whether and how social class shapes their approaches to an important transition in their children’s education trajectories. In the city in which our study takes place, there is enormous variation in school quality— schools range from being nationally recognized for academic excellence to being deemed “persistently dangerous.” In such a context, the consequences of the high school selection process extend beyond the domain of education to encompass consequences for health and well-being. Although there was nearly universal participation in the high school placement process among parents in this study, the objectives parents pursued varied widely by social class. We find that middle-class parents participate in school choice in order to secure their children placement in the limited number of highly-selective high schools in the city, ones that will facilitate entry into the college of their choice. In contrast, working-class parents participate in the process in order to avoid a highly undesirable neighborhood high school. We contribute to the growing literature on social class and parenting practices that departs from a focus on class culture to illustrate the ways in which class-based resources impact the strategies that parents adopt as well as the returns they reap.

Authors

• Amy Lutz, Syracuse University

• Pamela R. Bennett, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

• Lakshmi Jayaram, University of South Florida