Creating diversity, managing integration

This dissertation builds on two years of data collection in five schools to advance understanding of school integration policies. I interrogate how legal changes that restrict the use of race and ethnic criteria in school admissions intersect with bottom-up changes in how policymakers, advocates, and school community members talk about and understand integration to inform how school integration policies evolve on-the-ground. I study the Diversity in Admissions (DIA) pilot in New York City's public elementary schools. The DIA is a voluntary policy program that sets-aside seats each year for students entering pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classes based on varying economic and language criteria. The aim of the program is to halt or reverse a process through which schools that traditionally served low income students of color now serve growing numbers of more affluent white students as a result of gentrification in their communities. I evaluate the DIA pilot in two ways. First, I ask whether schools see changes to their racial, ethnic, and economic composition. Second, I ask whether schools create substantive integration and inclusion, meaning an environment where families of all backgrounds feel welcomed and enfranchised and that works towards equity among students and families. I study these issues in three articles. The first article examines the numeric outcomes the DIA pilot has in different schools in the first two years after implementation. I explain why one school was able to increase the share of low-income students while another school faced substantial challenges in meeting the policy's goals. In the second article I analyze how school administration and parental leadership manage school policy-related conflicts in the period after implementation. I explore how managing school integration informs the management of other contentions in the school. In the third article I study the work of parents' diversity committees in two schools and contrast between actions that sustain existing social hierarchies in the school and actions that undermine the privilege of white families and students. Together, the three articles contribute to our understanding of school integration policies and have important policy implications. They show that school integration policies have yet to accommodate the existing legal restrictions in a constructive way. They also show that the common assumption in the field of education that school choice hinders school integration should be reevaluated in the context of gentrification. My study also suggests that school integration requires a nuanced approach to families' racial, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. School should be both attuned to how these backgrounds shape parents' engagement but also sensitive to the ways in which parents' attitudes and grievances are independent of their demography. Finally, my study suggests conditions under which a political motivation to question existing social hierarchies can potentially translate into school practices that undermine racial and economic privileges. These contributions offer guidelines both to policymakers who shape integration policies and to communities that are interested in integration and inclusion as to how to achieve their goals.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference