Abstract
Legal rulings on school segregation have played critical roles in shaping the demographic make-up of public schools in ways that we continue to struggle with long after separate schools were declared unequal. School districts’ efforts to racially diversify their schools are not only impacted by these rulings but the politics (local, state, federal) surrounding student assignment policies also influence their design and implementation. Pairing a critical policy analysis approach with a policy implementation framework, I provide a nuanced analysis of the complexities behind the development and implementation of three student assignment policies that use a number of factors in assigning students to schools in order to achieve racial and socioeconomic diversity, paying particular attention to how and why decisions are made, and the (un)intended consequences of the policy implementation process. By examining different student assignment policies in different contexts, we can begin to understand what types of policies may work best to achieve racial and socioeconomic diversity.
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Diem, S. (2017). A Critical Policy Analysis of the Politics, Design, and Implementation of Student Assignment Policies. In: Young, M., Diem, S. (eds) Critical Approaches to Education Policy Analysis. Education, Equity, Economy, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39643-9_3
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