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The Social Geography of Choice: Neighborhoods’ Role in Students’ Navigation of School Choice Policy in Chicago

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Abstract

This study extends research on school choice policy, and on the geography of educational opportunity, by exploring how students understand their school choices and select from them within social-geographical space. Using a conceptual framework that draws from situated social cognition and recent research on neighborhood effects, this study explores the experiences of 36 students seeking admission to high school in Chicago Public Schools, a large urban district that offered 130 high school options the year of data collection. Our findings reveal that students’ choice processes were geographically specific, and mirrored spatial patterns of power and privilege in Chicago. This article concludes with a discussion of findings’ implications for socially and spatially equitable school choice policy, and for subsequent research on the geography of educational opportunity.

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Notes

  1. While each Chicago Public Schools student may attend a “neighborhood” high school where s/he lives, most students apply to a range of high schools including military, magnet, charter, International Baccalaureate, performing arts and selective enrollment high schools (SEHS).

  2. When mentioned in conjunction with specific study participants, high school names are replaced with pseudonyms to protect participant privacy.

  3. Schools considered “minimally selective” admitted students on the basis of an essay but did not consider applicants’ grades or test scores, or admitted students via lottery (but were not charter schools).

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Annmarie Valdes, Landis Fryer and Zareen Kamal for their assistance with data collection, preparation and analysis, David Treering for his preparation of this article's map figures, and Linn Posey-Maddox, Pamela Quiroz and The Urban Review’s anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on previous drafts of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Loyola University Chicago, 820 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1100, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA

    Kate L. Phillippo & Briellen Griffin

  2. Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Kate L. Phillippo

  3. University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Briellen Griffin

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  1. Kate L. Phillippo
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  2. Briellen Griffin
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Correspondence to Kate L. Phillippo.

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Phillippo, K.L., Griffin, B. The Social Geography of Choice: Neighborhoods’ Role in Students’ Navigation of School Choice Policy in Chicago. Urban Rev 48, 668–695 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-016-0373-x

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