Religion, Race and Schooling Choices for Children

David Sikkink

What is the relationship between racial distributions in schools and neighborhoods, and schooling choices for children? Other studies have provided evidence that whites avoid schools with more black students, but many of these studies focus either on the school-level or individual-level processes. This paper provides a detailed quantitative analysis with a nationally representative dataset that accounts for both contextual and individual level effects. Using longitudinal data available in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, it shows the central role that residential mobility plays as a form of school choice, and how the relationship between racial distribution and school choices varies across school sector.

About David Sikkink

David Sikkink is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame and a Fellow in Notre Dame’s Center for Research on Educational Opportunity. He received a doctorate in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1998. His dissertation, Public Schooling and Its Discontents, funded by the National Science Foundation, examined the relationship of religion, schooling choices for children, and civic participation. His publications include a 1999 Social Forces article, “The Social Sources of Alienation from Public Schools.” As a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, he currently is studying the role of race and religion in shaping schooling choices for children. He is also studying the role of schools—including religious and home schools—in encouraging lower class parents to be actively involved in schools, and in fostering civic participation among parents and students.