School choice and racial segregation in US schools: The role of parents’ education

Decomposing School Resegregation

“…Collins (1971) argues that individual competition for resources translates into group-based competition because group membership is a powerful source of identity linked to individuals' social and cultural resources. In an illuminating study by Sikkink and Emerson (2008), highly educated black and white parents sought high-status schools for their children, but racially segregated social networks limited white parents' access to information about high-quality integrated schools. This lack of information led whites to associate the presence of minority students with lower status and thus enroll their children in predominantly white schools.…”

“…Almost 60 years since the Brown (1954) decision, black, Hispanic, and American Indian students are still concentrated in predominantly minority, high-poverty, low-achieving schools, while whites remain concentrated in higherachieving, predominantly white schools with less poverty (Logan, Minca, and Sinem 2012). Such crucial resources as local funds (Condron and Roscigno 2003) and experienced teachers (Clotfelter, Ladd, and Vigdor 2005), as well as less tangible resources such as status (Sikkink and Emerson 2008), are unequally distributed according to schools' racial and socioeconomic composition.…”

Assimilation Patterns of Migrant Students in China: An Exploration of their Implications for Mathematics Outcomes

“…Considerable evidence has now accumulated worldwide to establish that segregation is an important factor in explaining certain differences in educational outcomes amongst migrant individuals (Dunne and Gazeley, 2008;Sikkink and Emerson, 2008;Agirdag et al, 2013). We submit, however, that there is a radical ambiguity in the interpretations given in the literature to the term, 'segregation' which has served to conflate conceptual subtleties of importance which need to be rendered far more pellucid.…”

Access to Better Education: The School Choice Experience of Families Served by Low-Performing Elementary Public Schools in Miami-Dade County

“…Only 36% of parents of non-transfers had at least a high school diploma. This is important because education influences a parent's socioeconomic status, which influences the likelihood of them using school choice options (Ball 1993;Neild 2005;Sikkink and Emerson 2008). Although the parents of transfers had one year more of education on average than that of non-transfers, they were less likely to be employed.…”

“…Additionally, some recent reforms are implemented using untested assumptions about student learning and improving low-performing schools (Davidson et al 2012;Hansen 2012;Polikoff et al 2013;Ravitch 2013). The evidence on school choice to date suggests that its effort to combat stratification have been largely ineffective (Andre-Bechely 2007;Sikkink and Emerson 2008;Lubienski et al 2009;Ravtich 2013). …”