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 perceive between student demographics and school quality in diversifying areas of New York City. Using portraiture, I find that New Yorkers reluctantly re-inscribed the stigma associated with segregated schools, assuming that the best way to improve a school was to increase its diversity. These racialized discourses of pathology and diversity call into question the extent to which advocacy for integration advances the goals of educational justice.