Exam 1 | Urban Schools and Communities

Subdecks (1)

Cards (237)

  • In the U.S., children are typically assigned to schools based on their residential location
  • Roughly 70% of U.S. children attend their neighborhood school
  • Disadvantages seen in residential neighborhoods tend to get reflected in schools
  • Schools often reproduce, rather than reduce, inequality
  • Schooling can perpetuate social and economic inequalities within and across generations
  • Students from different class backgrounds are provided with different types of education, preparing them for different types of employment
  • Schools sort students based on social class and teach the skills necessary for different job roles
  • Equality ensures everyone has the same resources, while equity ensures everyone has the resources they need for success
  • Being poor in a high-poverty neighborhood is more detrimental to children than being poor in a low-poverty or mixed-income neighborhood
  • Neighborhoods can affect outcomes such as educational attainment, race relations, health, exposure to violence, employment, and housing stability
  • Neighborhood effect refers to the independent impact neighborhoods have on life outcomes
  • Mechanisms through which neighborhoods influence individuals include institutions, social interactions, norms of behavior, and resources
  • Urban poverty became more concentrated in the 1970s and 1980s due to deindustrialization and other factors
  • Structural transformation of the economy led to deindustrialization, impacting cities, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest
  • Racial residential segregation was a key factor in the increased concentration of poverty, especially black poverty, in the U.S.
  • Neighborhood conditions are passed down from generation to generation, affecting contextual mobility
  • Inherited neighborhood inequality can be explained by discrimination in housing, racial differences in income/wealth, and changing neighborhoods
  • Current levels of inequality reflect structures of opportunities available over multiple generations
  • Residential segregation refers to the degree of physical separation between different social groups in a given area
  • Measuring racial residential segregation includes factors like evenness, exposure, centralization, clustering, and concentration
  • The Fair Housing Act of 1968 aimed to prohibit discrimination in housing, but segregation has persisted
  • Two perspectives on explaining residential segregation are the Spatial Assimilation Model and the Place Stratification Model
  • Racial/ethnic minorities are sorted by place according to the group's relative standing in society, limiting socially mobile members from residing in the same communities as comparable whites
  • Whites use segregation to maintain social distance, resulting from structural forces tied to racial prejudice and discrimination that preserve the status advantages of whites
  • Two mechanisms of segregation: Individual preferences and institutional discrimination
  • Place Stratification Model A: Individual Preferences
    • Studies examine respondents' comfort with and willingness to enter neighborhoods with varying degrees of integration
    • Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians demonstrate higher preferences for more integrated neighborhoods
    • Whites exhibit the strongest preferences for same-race neighbors, and blacks the weakest
    • Preferences vary based on who the out-group is
  • Possible explanations for preferences = prejudice:
    1. Ethnocentrism ("birds of a feather")
    2. Race as a proxy
    3. Prejudice
  • Place Stratification Model B: Discrimination
    • Historical evidence of institutional discrimination in sales, rentals, and lending reveal discrimination well established
    • Redlining and steering are practices that contributed to the creation of segregated neighborhoods
  • Steering:
    • Real estate brokers guide prospective home buyers to certain neighborhoods based on race
    • Advising customers to purchase homes in certain neighborhoods because of their race
    • Failing to show buyers homes or tell them about neighborhoods based on their race
  • Place Stratification Model B: Institutional Discrimination
    • Plenty of evidence suggests that institutional discrimination still exists, despite the Fair Housing Act
    • Audit studies show disparities in housing experiences for Blacks and Hispanics compared to Whites
  • Individual vs. structural discrimination:
    • Individual discrimination: Negative treatment based on perceived characteristics
    • Structural discrimination: Unequal treatment built into society's institutions, does not require individual prejudiced motivations
  • Structural discrimination in housing:
    • Historical examples include discriminatory loan programs and practices like redlining and steering
    • Contemporary examples include "reverse redlining" and predatory lending
  • The value of school integration:
    • Linked to reducing inequality and improving multicultural awareness
    • Academic benefits for students of color in integrated schools without detriment to white students
  • The push for integration:
    • Brown vs. Board of Education (1954) was a landmark case ruling racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional
    • Different forms of segregation: De jure (mandated by law) and de facto (in practice)
  • Forms of school segregation:
    1. Interdistrict segregation
    2. Intradistrict segregation
    3. Within individual schools, including tracking
  • The aftermath of Brown v. Board of Ed:
    • Desegregation efforts like forced busing in Boston
    • Resistance to busing in Boston due to racism and class issues
  • Milliken v. Bradley (1974):
    • Supreme Court ruling that desegregation efforts could not be extended to include suburban schools
  • Years of discriminatory practices in housing led to extremely segregated schools
  • The state was looked upon to remedy the problem by busing students across district lines
  • The Supreme Court ruled that suburban districts were not at fault for school segregation and not responsible for fixing it