Segregation, Diversity, and Pathology: School Quality and Student Demographics in Gentrifying New York

Abstract

Discussions of school integration often contrast the perceived deficits of segregated schools with the perceived strengths of schools with diverse student bodies. In this study, I examine the relationships that school community members infer between student demographics and school quality in diversifying areas of New York City. I use portraits of three New Yorkers to examine the ways that school community members reluctantly re-inscribe the stigma associated with segregated schools, assuming that the best way to improve a school is to increase its diversity. These braided discourses of pathology and diversity call into question the extent to which advocacy for integration advances the goals of educational justice.

Interest Convergence and Market-Based School Reform: The Promise and Limits of Using Controlled Choice to Desegregate Schools

“…The advantaged parents we spoke to, across racial and ethnic identities, either implicitly or explicitly associated academic success with White children and children from middle- or upper-class families. While these parents were often critical of the segregation that had occurred with screened admissions, many nonetheless perpetuated its logic of pathology and assumed that poor, mostly Black and Latinx students who received priority in the new weighted lottery system were less academically capable or prepared, and that schools that continued to enroll large majorities of Latinx students were less academically rigorous (Freidus, 2022 ). For some, class was a way to avoid speaking directly about race or ethnicity.…”

“…By portraying education as a good to be procured in a market, school choice often exacerbates educational segregation and inequality, as parents are asked to seek out what they think is best for their children as individuals, rather than as part of a larger community (Chingos & Monarrez, 2020 ). School choice models can particularly undermine common good notions of education in gentrifying urban districts, as researchers have found that choice policies intended to attract and retain White and other middle and upper middle class families often: reinforce inequitable access to information (André-Bechely, 2005 ; Pattillo, 2015 ); reify parents’ racialized school preferences (Billingham & Hunt, 2016 ; Evans, 2021 ; Hailey, 2022 ); promote opportunity hoarding (Sattin-Bajaj & Roda, 2020 ; Roda & Wells, 2013 ); and accelerate the gentrification process itself (Freidus, 2022 ; Makris, 2015 ; Quarles & Butler, 2018 ).…”

“…In addition to feeling that the lottery was more fair and less stressful than competitive admissions had been, these advantaged mothers also saw school desegregation as a valuable goal. While believing that their children would benefit by learning in a more diverse environment, some also used what Freidus ( 2022 ) calls the “braided discourses of pathology and diversity” to explain how poor children and the schools they had typically attended would benefit even more from access to better opportunities and more diverse student populations (p.1). Joanne, for example, maintained that increased student diversity would be good for all children, but she was also one of many advantaged parents we interviewed—across racial backgrounds—who emphasized that previously racially and economically segregated schools, and the children who had historically attended them, had the most to gain from the reform.…”

“…Critics of controlled choice argue that such programs often offer parents only the illusion of empowerment and thus lead to “the loss (or ‘flight’) of white and middle-class families” when they experience more “controls” than “choice” in their children’s school assignments (Armor, 2019 , p.2). The notion that White and other advantaged parents may reject controlled choice models that require their children to attend diverse schools in which they may be in the racial and/or socioeconomic minority is supported by an abundance of research documenting that White parents’ claims of valuing diverse educational settings for their children are rarely reflected in their school choices—even, or perhaps especially, in politically-liberal, affluent urban enclaves (Evans, 2021 ; Freidus, 2022 ; Posey-Maddox, 2014 ; Roda & Wells, 2013 ; Torres & Weissbourd, 2020 ; Wells, 2018 ). For controlled choice to function as an example of interest convergence, relatively advantaged families have to both value integrated educational settings and believe that their families’ individual educational interests can be served by them.…”

Contested Justice: Rethinking Educational Equity through New York City’s COVID-19 School Reopening Debates

“…Educational policy actors can (strategically or not) mobilize different notions of equity to support and advance their policy goals (Bertrand et al, 2015;Bulkley, 2013;Horsford, 2016;Scott 2013a). Notions of equity can be harnessed or co-opted to support inequitable and unjust policies, reinforce or advance racist and classist ideas such as deficit-thinking and the denial of systemic racism, divert attention from structural inequity, and allow policymakers to characterize themselves in a positive manner as addressing inequity (Bertrand, et al, 2015;Freidus, 2022;Lewis-Durham, 2020;Melamed, 2011;Omi & Winant, 2015;Turner, 2020b). For these reasons, how we conceptualize in/equity has crucial implications for education research and policy.…”