Race, Poverty, and the Suburbanization of Public School Segregation

• In Event: Equity and Community Contexts: Implications for Educational Leadership and Policy

Abstract

As US suburbs experience profound demographic shifts, scholars have expressed concern of rising segregation among suburban schools. We extend this work by examining exposure to poverty by race and racial differences in exposure to poverty in the wake of the Great Recession across a typology of suburban neighborhoods in Chicago. We merge enrollment data with census data on the demographic attributes of residents and examine racial differences in exposure to school poverty.We find intra-suburban variation, with all racial groups seeing a stark increase in economic school segregation between 2007 and 2018, with Whites experiencing the largest growth in inner suburbs, and Black and Hispanics increasingly disadvantaged in outer suburbs. Our findings underscore complex forms of suburban disadvantage in rapidly diversifying suburbs.

Authors

• Kfir Mordechay, Pepperdine University
  Presenting Author

• Fabian Terbeck
  Non-Presenting Author