Choosing Schools, Choosing Neighborhoods: Understanding the New Segregation
Sean Reardon
About the research
Award
NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship
Award Year
2002
Institution
Stanford University
Primary Discipline
Sociology
Racial and socioeconomic segregation among schools and neighborhoods remains a stubborn fact of U.S. society, although the nature of segregation has changed as the U.S. has become an increasingly multi-racial and metropolitan society. This ‘new segregation’ is characterized by several key features: 1) it reflects the increasingly multi-racial/ethnic population of the U.S.; 2) it is largely metropolitan in scope, rather than contained primarily in large urban school districts; 3) it is largely due to residential segregation between urban and suburban areas and among suburban school districts; 4) it is complicated by the increases in socioeconomic diversity within racial/ethnic groups; and 5) private school enrollment and segregation patterns compound the effects of existing residential segregation on school segregation.
Given the changes in segregation patterns in the U.S., traditional intra-district school assignment remedies alone are now inadequate to significantly reduce school segregation; instead, new approaches that focus on residential patterns and the relationship between the private and public school sectors are necessary. This project will 1) characterize the patterns and trends of the ‘new segregation’ with detailed analyses of census data and public and private school enrollment data, and 2) investigate the causes of these patterns by studying why families with children choose the schools and neighborhoods they do. With this project I hope to make a significant contribution to our understanding of the processes that give rise to this ‘new segregation,’ in the hope that a better understanding of the causes will lead to more viable remedies.
About Sean Reardon
Sean F. Reardon is Assistant Professor of Education and Sociology and a Faculty Affiliate of the Population Research Institute at Pennsylvania State University. His recent research focuses on patterns of racial and socioeconomic school and residential segregation in the United States and on methodological issues for the study of segregation and inequality. He is currently working on a study of private school enrollment and segregation patterns and a study of recent patterns of resegregation in the South. As a complement to his research on segregation, he studies the effects of school and neighborhood social context on adolescent education and problem behavior.