Exam 1 | Urban Schools and Communities

• 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