Gentrification beings a host of economic and social changes. Changes in community culture do not directly impact residents’ livelihoods or homes, but these differences in lifestyles shape peoples’ experiences of their homes. I examine rhetoric in three gentrifying neighborhoods in Atlanta, GA to see how it expresses both the uncertainty that new and long‐time residents feel about their communities, and how it is indicative of boundary‐work residents engage in to distinguish their group from the “others.” Residents express concern about the safety and happiness of children in demographically changing communities. I find that residents focus on threats to children as a socially acceptable way to object to the different class, and sometimes race, background of their neighbors. This boundary maintenance activity serves to calcify divisions between groups of residents, and obscures the underlying schisms between the privileged and less‐privileged residents in gentrifying neighborhoods.

The dictum that "context matters" notwithstanding, few researchers have focused on how social capital affects educational outcomes for ethnic groups outside of the United States. Using German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP) data, analyses highlight the group-specific effects of parental social capital on track placement among 11-16-year-old German and non-German students. For both groups, parents' family ties fail to affect track placement. Parents' community ties have mixed effects. Among Germans, parental involvement in sports affects children's tracking positively. Among non-Germans, parental socializing with peers affects track placement negatively, while parental involvement in religion-based community groups and interethnic ties with Germans improve track placement chances. We relate these findings to different strands of social capital theory. How does access to "social capital" affect educational outcomes? Drawing largely on Coleman's (1988) conceptualization, research has focused on the positive impact of triangular ties among parents, teachers, and children (Lareau 1987; Parcel and Dufur 2001; Stanton-Salazar and Dornbusch 1995; Stevenson and Baker 1987). Intragenerational peer networks among children have garnered similar attention, though the literature suggests that such ties may have a detrimental impact on achievement. While some studies point to the positive effects of contacts among adults (Carbonaro 1998), others find that parent involvement and social closure have group-specific, and sometimes even negative, effects on academic outcomes (

The loss of political influence is an important adverse consequence of gentrification for long-time residents. This study examines why neighborhood organizations in three gentrifying neighborhoods in Atlanta, Georgia, chose to address this potential problem, while organizations in another gentrifying community did not. Organizations of long-time residents, whether formed before gentrification or in response to it, were more likely to address political displacement. Neighborhood organizations with strong track records of providing benefits for neighbors and that adopted accepted organizational forms were more likely to mobilize effectively to protect the political participation of long-time residents. Interorganizational conflict minimized groups' ability to address political changes.

No abstract

No abstract