Abstract
This case study explores how student migration impacts low-income fourth grade African American and Latino children in the US who leave their neighborhoods to attend a state-of-the-art facility in a downtown urban area. Children at the World Citizens School (WCS) convey how safety plays a key role in their restrictions by parents and in their daily lives in a near total institutional environment. The use of multiple methods show how the social relations of community are modified by student migration and how one community is displaced by another.
Keywords
As urban school reform in the US increasingly intersects with urban planning experiments driven by neoliberal policies, large numbers of children are being turned into migrant learners. Much has been written about the migration of students across neighborhoods, particularly as this process has been linked to desegregation initiatives and magnet school attendance, that is, competitive public schools designed to attract racially/ethnically diverse and academically superior students (Frankenberg and Debray, 2011; Mickelson, 2003; Wells and Crain, 1997; Wells and Holme, 2006). However, student migration is now a central feature of efforts that promote school choice to access a quality education and the geography of opportunity often entails attending school outside of the child’s neighborhood but within the same urban area. Particular attention has been given to the impact of these practices on the academic performance and engagement of adolescents (Angrist and Lang, 2004; Johnson, 2010; Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn, 2004; Rosenbaum, 1995; Rosenbaum et al., 2002). Less attention has been given to the impact of student migration on young children. Research tells us that ‘place’ matters for young children, though just how it matters remains unclear.
This case study explores how student migration impacts low-income fourth grade African American and Latino children who leave their neighborhoods to attend a state-of-the-art facility in a downtown urban area (Center City). Recognizing children’s views of place not only as a product of their observable experiences, but also as the ways in which they interpret and express those experiences, we combine interviews with children and their community maps and photographs, adult informant interviews, observations, and document analysis, to convey an understanding of how children perceive their communities and what changes they offer to improve them.
Children at the World Citizens School (WCS) described how safety played a key role in restrictions by parents and how it factored into their schooling experience in a near total institutional environment. With a structure that organized significant aspects of students’ lives, such as learning, playing, eating, and even time at home, the WCS approximated such an environment (Cookson and Persell, 1988; Goffman, 1961). Revealing a perspicacity that articulates to theories of educational advantage, the children at WCS conveyed how the social relations of community were modified by student migration as they described attenuated ties and a generally negative disposition toward their neighborhood. In so doing, children characterized how one community was displaced by another, however inadvertently. We focus on this site as an attempt to disrupt the cycle of lowered academic achievement that characterizes many children in urban neighborhoods. The study also points to the broader implications of community attachment as a feature of remaking our educational institutions via urban design and market choices.
A sociology of ‘place’ and urban schooling
No examination of children’s place-making can proceed without defining the concept of place. Thomas Gieryn (2000) defined ‘place’ as having three features: (1) geographic location, (2) material form, and (3) investment in meaning and value. Simply put, place is a location – a city, neighborhood or school – compiled of material objects such as buildings, houses, or books and desks – and interpreted by various groups in society (2000: 465). Place signifies the intersection of material and geographic location (space) with the interpretations people make about them. The study of place is particularly salient for social scientists who research residential inequalities and the social problems associated with them. Patterns of housing and segregation convincingly explain much of the persistent inequalities in life outcomes, particularly for economically marginalized African Americans and Latinos who live in urban areas (Massey and Denton, 1993; Shapiro, 2004; Squires and Kubrin, 2005; Wilson, 1987). One important consequence of segregated housing is the marginalization of children in urban places where risks related to crime, health, and education are pronounced (Furstenberg and Hughes, 1997). Recent solutions to these seemingly intractable problems have involved alliances between urban planners, educational policymakers, scholars, and activists. As part of the complex agenda of expanding children’s geography of opportunity US urban school reform is now linked to a quasi-educational marketplace with a variety of alternative schools that operate alongside neighborhood public schools. These include charter schools, gifted or specialty schools, and magnet and selective enrollment schools. They also include private schools, as a significant number of educational entrepreneurs have developed alternatives to public education, such as the WCS.
The World Citizens School and its neighborhoods
Created in 2006, the WCS was a response to disgruntled parents whose children attended a local school in the Westside neighborhood of Center City. Urged by these parents, the founder of the WCS and a former resident of Westside, created a kindergarten and subsequently added a grade every year to the present. As the school expanded, so too did the need for additional space and the founder strategically decided to locate the school outside of the existing neighborhood, hence, its move to the heart of the city. The WCS drew the majority of its students from Westside which was less than 10 miles from the city’s economic core. Westside residents are largely low-income and undereducated African Americans and Latinos (US Census Bureau, 2007–2011). Many of the homes in Westside are freestanding single-family units with front yards protected by high wrought-iron gates or chain link fences and bars on first floor windows. Though most of the homes are well maintained, two-flat and multi-unit apartment buildings and a number of abandoned and boarded-up properties also blot the landscape. Unlike the gentrified neighborhoods of the city, there are also many empty or boarded-up storefronts while chain restaurants and retail stores are limited to businesses such as McDonald’s and Rainbow, a discount clothing chain. Other than small locally owned ‘mom and pop’ markets, large chain grocery stores are almost non-existent as this area is known to be a food desert. 1 Two to three storefront churches can be found on almost every commercial block of Westside as traditional or mainstream churches have seemingly abandoned much of the neighborhood in favor of suburban settings. These blocks can feel strangely empty because the stores are not bustling with business. Most people are simply ‘hanging out’ on the street.
In contrast, the WCS is located in the economic core of Center City with a number of Fortune 500 businesses within walking distance of the school. This neighborhood is known as Riverwood and features notable historical landmarks, a diverse dining scene, a number of nightlife options, and nearby access to museums and cultural venues. Residents of Riverwood are largely white, single or married (without children), educated, and affluent. The contrast between the Westside and Riverwood neighborhoods is dramatic (see Figure 1 and Table 1).
The dramatic contrast between the Westside and Riverwood neighborhoods.
Demographic details for WCS and its neighborhoods.
At the time of our study the WCS had an enrollment of 125 students, with two kindergarten classes and one class each of first through fourth grade (January–June 2011). About half of the 13 fourth graders in this case study attended WCS since daycare while the other half entered the school at different points in time. The racial/ethnic demographics of the school were 87% African American, 10% percent Latino, 2% percent Asian, and 1% percent Caucasian. According to school data, 80–90% percent of WCS students were low-income (i.e., qualify for the Federal Free or Reduced Lunch Program) and though the cost of tuition was roughly $7000 per year, staff estimated that over 90% of students attended the WCS on scholarship. The school also provided bus transportation for the Westside children. As a result, the WCS offered real educational choice in an urban context where choice implies an open-ended process but typically places the onus on families to acquire information and to exercise their options (e.g., transportation).
Blending Direct Instruction with a social justice curriculum designed to develop critical thinkers who possess a comprehensive world view, the WCS reported that most students excelled beyond age grade level. The formal school day began at 8:30 a.m. and concluded at 4:15 p.m. However, children were bused from Westside at 7:30 a.m. and were expected to eat breakfast together prior to the beginning of the school day (8 a.m.). Eating meals involved rules about etiquette as children were assigned roles and expected to serve one another. ‘Before’ (6–8 a.m.) and ‘after’ school programs (4:30–6 p.m.) were also offered at the WCS. Travel to and from Westside entailed a minimum of a half hour each way. Students also averaged an hour of homework each night. Consequently, schooling occupied no fewer than 10 hours of the average student’s day. Other social arrangements by the school further extends the notion of a total school environment, such as the requirement that students wear uniforms, school rituals and ceremonies that acknowledged peers and important historical events, and chants during school activities that were designed to promote a sense of collective identity. A variety of extra-school activities offered students collective experiences comparable to children of more privileged social class backgrounds. These included camping and field trips and travel to other countries (Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo). The WCS also offered summer school designed as enrichment rather than remediation and parents were required to attend a series of teach-ins and to serve on various school committees.
The WCS was located in a circular-shaped building positioned on one of the city’s waterways and considered to be an architectural wonder. Housed on the first and second floors of the building the school’s design was open and bright with windows and terraces that surrounded all sides and allowed natural light to flow from floor to ceiling. The interior of the school supplemented the architectural aesthetic and the walls of the school were brightly painted, decorated with historical figures and the work of students. In addition to the reception area the first floor of the school housed three ‘specials’ classrooms (French, art, and science) along with the school’s library. A brightly decorated stairwell led to the second floor where the standard classrooms were also similarly painted, along with a computer lab, administrative offices, and a large open space and a terrace that doubled as assembly area and recess space.
Environmental psychologists and urban studies scholars have linked the physical and natural environment to the development of self-discipline in children and adolescents, with implications for success in school (Taylor et al., 2002). We expand the notion of an environmental aesthetic beyond the natural environment to include the physical environment of the school. With this in mind, we ask how children’s perceptions of the Westside neighborhood intersected with their perceptions of the environment of the WCS? In an urban policy context that now offers multiple pathways and multiple places to promote academic opportunity, understanding these processes through the eyes and voices of children is critical to addressing the rights of children and including them in the policymaking process.
Methods/analysis
Our goal was to conduct a case study that centered on children’s views of place and student migration. Case studies are particularly useful when researchers are trying to study a broad range of processes or events that are not under their control and the convergence of multiple lines of inquiry used in case studies are more likely to present a picture that is both authentic and convincing (Yin, 2009). Therefore, data collection was divided into four key research activities: (1) gathering descriptive material about the neighborhood and school contexts; (2) interviews with children and key adult informants; (3) observations in the school, on the school bus, and in the Westside neighborhood; and (4) child-centered activities that included community maps and self-directed photography. According to the literature, multiple modalities of expression in child-centered research empower children by promoting their participation in the production of oral and visual texts (Hill, 2006; Rose, 2012; Ross, 2007). For the purposes of our case study, multiple methods also allowed us to capture the contradictory aspects of children’s experiences as they migrated from an impoverished urban neighborhood to an affluent part of the city. Visual methods in particular convey the feel of urban place and allow us to see how these places are experienced by a disempowered group (Mannay, 2010). As novices in the use of visual research methods we borrowed extensively from existing studies of child-centered research and the geography of opportunity (Aitken and Wingate, 1993; Chawla, 2002; Clark, 2011; Clark Ibanez, 2007; Dell Clark, 2007; Hume et al., 2005; Orellana, 2008; Reay, 2007; Young and Barrett, 2001). Ultimately, we followed Keats’s (2009) recommendation to provide an overview of the data and separate analyses of visual and oral texts and follow up with analysis of the relationship between the two types of texts.
We solicited participation first by letter, and subsequently, by a face-to-face presentation to parents, staff, and children. A separate presentation to fourth graders solicited their assent and children were encouraged to participate in only those activities that appealed to them. They were also reminded about their ability to withdraw from participation during each activity. Our descriptive data include school documents and other relevant media data, such as newspaper articles, websites, and other Internet sources (student performances on YouTube.com, a school blog, and the school’s Facebook page). Neighborhood data include US Census data and real estate websites such as Zillow and Trulia. Structured interviews with fourth graders, key administrators, teachers, and parents were designed to address how children viewed their neighborhood and school spaces, children’s cultural understanding and acceptance of other people, the role of family in facilitating school migration, children’s travel outside of school, and their perceptions of the school and instruction. Four parents/guardians were interviewed along with seven key staff members and teachers. Children’s interviews averaged 35 minutes and adult interviews averaged 60 minutes. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed. Table 2 gives an overview of the methods used with each group of participants.
Participation in research activities.
As Wridt (2010) points out, neighborhoods represent the most significant spaces in which low-income children can be active outside of home and school, and yet neighborhoods often fail to support children’s physical activities because of lack of resources, crime, or physical geography (i.e., no parks or playgrounds). Community maps and self-directed photography focused on the neighborhood to assess children’s perceptual cartographies of the spaces in which their daily lives occurred outside of school, along with the spaces they defined as personally significant (see Rasmussen, 2004). The map activity occurred over a two-week period and was guided by research assistants. Children were asked to draw community maps of their neighborhoods and to highlight streets, houses, parks, and other local spaces. In both the map and photography activities children were asked to show the physical landscapes in their local area and their favorite places. Similar to the community map activity, children were instructed in self-directed photography and on use of the camera. They were also asked to obtain an individual or group’s verbal permission before photographing them. Each child took approximately 24 photographs and became the owners of their photographs as we requested permission to use them in presentation or print.
First, we independently engaged in an exploratory analysis of the data. Then we compared our list of sites and impressions, collectively developed a coding template, and recorded the visual representations of children’s geographies. This resulted in an inventory of local spaces and we looked for dominant or modal spaces. However, we also tried to look beyond the physical images to understand the personal and social meaning of these texts (see Orellana, 2008; Rose, 2012). A third and more refined look at the data used an interpretive lens to contemplate the relevance of these spaces. We then combined text from children’s interviews with visual texts to comprehend children’s phenomenologies as migrant students. Linking these materials reinforced some of our initial perceptions and forced us to modify others.
Despite our use of multiple qualitative methods, features of the case study complicate our claims about children’s interpretations. For example, by narrowing self-directed photography to the neighborhood where we learned that children spent limited time, we eliminated what may have been more relevant places to children. We also should have asked children to expand on their photographs beyond their abbreviated descriptions. Finally, we recognize that our ability to gain traction on the impact of student migration is limited by our sample size. Nevertheless, by posing ‘big’ questions to young children and involving them as ‘experts’ in this process, we provide the starting point for understanding urban place-making by children who migrate between neighborhoods to attend school. Equally important, our analysis suggests that information from each activity must be understood in relation to the other activities to understand children’s perspectives of their geographies. In the next section we present a rough outline drawn from each activity and then describe how the activities inform one another, blending insights from maps and photographs with interviews. Our discussion section adds another level of analysis as we describe what these data reveal about the impact of student migration on children attending the WCS, how the lessons of this case study are tied to similar events in other places, and the significance of race and class in the phenomenon of student migration.
Overview of findings
Community maps
Tables 3 and 4 list the local sites presented in each activity. Dominant sites in maps included children’s homes, streets, playgrounds, fast food restaurants, local food-marts, and corner grocery stores. Only one child’s map failed to include his/her home. In addition to homes, playgrounds were another significant space on maps, with nearly all of the maps featuring play spaces. Like homes, playgrounds were also detailed with drawings of slides, swing sets, a pond, and even a running track. Most maps used color, however, a few did not and one child used multiple colors to highlight his home while the other structures and icons on the map were outlined only in black. Maps provide the physical environment of children’s neighborhoods. Guided by prior research we also looked for what was not depicted in the maps. Two examples of the children’s maps are shown in Figures 2 and 3.
Community map content.
Photographic content.
Exterior home: Refers to photographs taken of the exterior of the student’s home.
Interior home: Refers to photographs taken of the interior of the student’s home.
Corner grocer: Refers to non-chain supermarkets that lack variety in nutritional food selection. Corner grocers exist in communities commonly characterized as food deserts.
Jason’s map depicts a running track and accentuates play space, home, and where he’d like to eat.
Maria’s map provides an example of play space that is depicted in most of the children’s maps. Her home is the origin of all pathways.
Only three maps included friends’ homes and only one of these maps contained the homes of multiple friends. More importantly, in our interviews, only two children claimed to have friends in their neighborhood and both of these friends were adults (e.g., the mailman). Though play spaces were drawn in almost half of the maps, the rest of the landscapes in all but two of these maps were devoid of nature (trees, grass, flowers, or other greenery). Most of the children did not draw parks or include any nature in their maps and only four maps featured community-based places like churches, schools, hospitals, or community centers. The limited number of churches in children’s maps surprised us, not only because of our walking census of the neighborhood (where storefront churches were numerous) but also because religious institutions have traditionally served multiple functions in African American and Latino communities. However, children’s maps did not portray religion as a central component of their lives. And while schools are often seen as key features of neighborhoods in children’s maps, only one child drew a school. We used these maps as our starting point, and subsequently examined them in conjunction with children’s photographs to try to understand their picture of their physical and social worlds.
Self-directed photography
Children’s photographs provide visual evidence of what we know about low-income neighborhoods due to years of disinvestment. Similar to the maps a number of places were common across photographs: internal and external views of homes, the street on which children resided, busy intersections, and local ‘mom and pop’ stores and other small businesses in the neighborhood (see Figure 4). Several children also took photographs of their bus ride to and from school. Akin to maps, photographs depicted little or no greenery or foliage. It was also clear that at least some of the children’s photographs were taken outside of the neighborhood. For example, one boy photographed a flat, grassy field with bike trails located at the edge of a large lake, a location quite distant from the Westside neighborhood. Interview data provide clarity for these photographs by informing us that most of the children’s time outside of the school was also spent outside of the neighborhood.
Jaime took this photograph across the street from his home. Jaime resides on a busy main street where one can see a number of ‘mom and pop’ markets adjacent to apartment buildings.
A limited number of studies of self-directed photography have found differences in foci between low-income and African American children versus their middle-class and white ethnic counterparts (Damico, 1985). The argument has been made that this is due to lack of exposure to a broader experience of blacks and because black cultural socialization experiences tend to stimulate a focus on people as opposed to places or things. While it is beyond the scope of this study to address these arguments we did observe that fourth graders at the WCS also tended to focus their attention on socially oriented situations and photographs of themselves, family members, and other children. The focus of these photographs conveys place attachment as located in the home as children took a substantial number of photographs of the home and siblings or other family members. In fact, two children focused almost exclusively on family members in their photographs. Eight children took photographs of themselves and one girl took a total of nine (of 24) photographs of herself. Attention to these foci compelled us to examine children’s photographs as more than simply images of material circumstances.
Beyond their use as sources of material reality, photographs were interpreted in relation to the insights they provided about children’s lives. For example, these images present the home as defining neighborhood and community for children. They also suggest the limitations on children’s spatial autonomy. Though children’s photographs conveyed their perspective based on their physical size, there was also a large number of photographs taken from inside the home – looking out a window or doorway, standing on the front porch, or from inside a car (see Figures 5 and 6). The locations from which the majority of their photographs were taken indicate what Ross (2007) calls mundane geographies, along with a highly circumscribed world. The paucity of different places and vantage points from which we see the neighborhood is reflective of children’s marginalization and privilege in this urban space as only one child described his mother driving him to a variety of locations in his neighborhood to take photographs.
George took this photo from the back porch of his home. The limited amount of play space and greenery is typical for the Westside community.
Cathy took this photo from her front porch. Limited spatial autonomy of the children is reflected in the fact that many of their photos were taken from the front or back porches of their homes, from inside of their homes, or from the inside of a car.
Photographs were also striking because of the lack of adults featured in them. Only two children included parents or other adults in their photographs. The majority of people in photographs taken in the home were of other children. Likewise, the majority of photographs taken from the home looking outside were of children, viewed from a distance, as passersby or neighbors. Unlike many of the children in other studies, the children who attended the WCS traveled significant distances from their homes to school. By the time they were in the fourth grade, these children had learned to negotiate their journeys between home and school. Most of them rode the school’s bus to and from school, however, the photographs of their journey were taken of friends or of themselves with friends. Children did not take photographs of the adults on the bus who accompanied them each day (i.e., the bus driver or teachers). Nor did they take photographs of places they viewed as they rode the bus between school and neighborhood. The focus was almost entirely internal (to the bus) and on other children. Thus, it would seem that children’s attention was focused on other children, either in their home, on their bus ride to school, or from their windows or doorways. It is possible that these are the people with whom they spent most of their time and who were central to their lives.
Comparing children’s photographs with their maps we explored how children actively and imaginatively engaged their environments (see Ross, 2007). We questioned whether children’s maps presented opportunities to mentally expand on place-making while their photographs captured the spatial limitations of their worlds. For example, virtually every map offered an icon of a fast food restaurant and a video game store, such as McDonald’s or Subway and Game Stop. However, none of the photographs included any of these places, and children’s interviews indicated that they did not frequent these places. Interviews with children augmented the social contexts presented in their maps and photographs. We regarded information from these activities as pieces of an interpretive puzzle as children’s interviews helped us to understand how their photographs aligned with the time spent outside of their neighborhood and with their generally negative views of their neighborhood.
Interviews
The themes that emerged in children’s interviews helped us to form a picture of the ways that their lives were structured and impacted by attending the WCS. These four themes included: (1) safety, (2) time spent in the neighborhood, (3) neighborhood ties, and (4) the WCS as community. All but one of the children characterized their neighborhood as unsafe and referred to limited spatial autonomy as explicitly linked to safety: Sometimes at night people are shooting other people … And fireworks … ’cause one time we went to a park and they took those things and kept throwing them at people. I don’t feel safe [in the neighborhood] because people are killing others and other people are throwing fireworks at people. (George) Yeah [I feel safe in the neighborhood] except when I’m far away from [the child’s street of residence]. There’s a lot of shooting and going to jail because they be selling weed and stuff. (Isaiah)
These perceptions were partially based on the fact that Westside reported substantially higher crime rates than many other neighborhoods in the city. Compared to Riverwood, Westside not only reported almost three times the number of crimes but the types of crimes reported also differed (e.g., serious crimes such as assault). Aside from the perceived lack of safety was a general sense of unease about their neighborhood, as children complained about excessive noise, drug dealers, and lack of cleanliness. They generally characterized the physical condition of their neighborhood as deprived or even offensive: The environment is not good. People cuss a lot … there’s a lot of trash and empty lots. (Damien) I go to the corner store and I go to another store across the street. And I go to the gas station sometimes. And that’s the only stores I got there. (Adam)
We learned that children’s family activities often occurred outside of the Westside neighborhood, as parents traveled to parks and settings located elsewhere in the city to provide leisure time for their children. A consequence of spending so much time outside of their neighborhood was their limited number of friendships and a general lack of connection to the neighborhood. We recalled that only two children said they had friends who lived in their neighborhood and these were adults. In fact, friends were almost exclusively described as other children attending the WCS.
Despite their views of their neighborhood, almost all children (9 of 10) claimed they wanted to live in their neighborhood when they grew up and explained this to mean that they wanted to live with their families. Every child suggested that the structure of life at the WCS resulted in a strong affiliation with the school as they explicitly referred to it as their community. Other than their desire for a ‘real’ playground and the addition of a lunchroom, children used superlatives to assess their school.
It’s a great school. (Damien) It’s perfect. (Jason) It’s a nice school, you learn a lot, you get to go to parties, and you do a lot of activities like Capoeira. And the teachers are nice. (Maria) This is a great school … because we don’t get whooped. We got great teachers and that’s it. (Carl)
Those children who had attended other schools prior to attending the WCS were able to provide examples of the differences between schools. In contrast to teachers in the neighborhood school, who were described as ‘mean’ and uncaring, teachers at the WCS were viewed as ‘nice’ and ‘fair.’ Some children related caring to a longer school day. In other words, the teachers at the WCS were perceived to care more about the children because they spent more time teaching them. Indeed, the total institutional environment that characterized the WCS, and the time spent in that environment, was seen by children (and their parents) as a positive feature of the school. We view their strong identification with the WCS as an effort to create new centers for themselves, with experiences at school that served as ubiquitous reminders of their contrasting lives in their neighborhoods. Children’s pragmatic philosophies of place provided the means of addressing their minority and marginalized social position linked to their residence.
Interpreting children’s visual and spoken stories
This case study captures the often contradictory aspects of children’s experiences as they migrated from an impoverished urban neighborhood to a school located in an affluent part of the city. For the majority of these children, the meaning of place wasn’t visible simply through one activity (i.e., maps, photographs, or interviews). Child activities did include places that suggested opportunities for interaction. However, most maps did not match photographs or interviews and interpretations of photographs were often clarified by interviews. Together these data suggest an impact of migration on young children as maps and photographs point to the spatial limitations of children and their limited connection to neighborhood as part of parents’ conscious decisions and the school’s structure. At the same time, oral texts embellished on the visual texts of photographs and maps. They also pointed to who was important to children and how family/home defined ‘community.’ Consequently, each activity must be understood in relation to information gleaned from the other activities in which children participated.
The case study suggests that student migration was both cause and consequence regarding children’s gestalt of place as they expressed no equivocation about their school but described weak ties to their neighborhood. In tangible ways children’s detachment from their neighborhood represents their families’ withdrawal from their community. Parents who were interviewed favored the Riverwood location of the WCS as safer for their children than Westside, and all children described how parents intentionally limited their time in the neighborhood by taking them to other neighborhoods and by sending them to the WCS. It is not surprising that most children’s sentiments about their neighborhood echoed their parents’ beliefs. However, it would be simplistic to describe children’s views about school and neighborhood as solely reflective of parent influence. Children were easily able to articulate what about their neighborhood was so dissatisfying along with what made the WCS so gratifying. And just as their maps and photographs look different from what the adults in their lives would emphasize, so too were many of their verbal expressions as they described how they experienced life in different places. Children detached from their neighborhoods, identified with their school, and thus, strategically mobilized a way to embed themselves in a society that largely marginalizes them. At the same time, they perceived themselves as having acquired knowledge that empowered them. The processes described in these texts reveal children as actively engaged in constructing their identities.
Discussion
In the US race and class figure prominently in the geography of opportunity. Center City’s public education system suggests that it effectively accommodates its student population (largely Latino and African American). However, the phenomenon of choice as a dominant component of attending school belies the reality of selective admissions processes that restrict opportunities to receive a quality education to a relatively small proportion of the city’s students. Increasing gentrification also plays a role in who comprises those privileged students. The US has seen serious shifts in discursive strategies that focus on school choice. However, these approaches have typically ignored the impact of student migration on how children develop and maintain a sense of self and orientation to their physical and social worlds. This case study captures the contradictions embedded in children’s experiences as they migrate between neighborhoods in search of educational opportunity and suggests an impact on their commitment to their community of residence. Despite their recognition of the WCS as community, children spoke equivocally about their neighborhood, and ultimately, their identities as part of their neighborhood. Though they are young, it is easy to perceive that student migration was accompanied by personal dissonance and to question how this dissonance might have been exacerbated in a different type of school.
Studies of the geography of schooling have suggested that education is one of the primary mechanisms by which the increasingly vulnerable middle classes protect their material and cultural distance from the poor and working classes (see Reay, 2007). As part of these practices urban schools have been vilified as pathological spaces and these processes of labeling and exclusion do not go unrecognized by the poor and disenfranchised. The WCS presents a counter-space to the dominant presentation of urban schooling by providing children with an opportunity to transcend real and imagined boundaries and to attend school in a markedly different environment. It also recalibrates representation of African American and Latino children as able, confident, and active participants in urban social life, as they make choices, achieve academically, and develop critical perspectives within their home and school contexts. As epilogue to the study, it is important to add that staff at the WCS was aware that their goal of producing world citizens by relocating them away from their neighborhood for the better part of the day, was not without cost, and that one of these costs was children’s weakened ties to their neighborhood. Children had no negative comments about their school but few positive comments about their neighborhood. To help remedy this, community service projects were created the following academic year. Thus, whether attending the WCS will mitigate the impact of impoverished neighborhoods (a tall order), and successfully disrupt the association between race and place, is yet to be determined. What remains to be seen is how their schooling experience at the WCS will ultimately impact children’s urban place-making. Will the geography of educational opportunity generate a material and cultural distance from their communities of residence?
We believe that even though a case study’s parameters limit generalization, there are links between what is happening to these children and other children who are similarly situated. The WCS represents one of many entrepreneurial attempts to provide alternatives to urban public education systems that persistently fail to serve all but a small segment of their populations, not only in the US but in Europe as well. As urban school reform and its emphasis on school choice increasingly promote student migration to access educational opportunity, the impact of these experiments warrant examination, particularly with young children from marginalized communities. It is essential to remember that the lines that distinguish poor and working-class from middle- and upper middle-class educational consumers are not just geographic, economic, or spatial, they are also cultural and racial. Any attempt to make schools the solution to the problem of urban place cannot ignore the intersections of race, place, and opportunity.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, we would like to acknowledge the children, parents, teachers, and staff at the World Citizens School. Without their active participation and their willingness to tolerate our disruptions in their lives, this work would have been meaningless. The WCS is truly a community that thrives because of its members, and particularly the tireless efforts of its Director. We also wish to thank her for opening her doors and inviting us in to conduct research at a time when it would have been easier to say no. We want to acknowledge and thank all of the research assistants who participated in the project. Their attention to detail, their professional behavior, and their willingness to go above and beyond what was asked of them made the effort a truly collective one and this study is better because of it. Finally, we want to thank our Dean without whose support this project would not have been possible.
Funding
Pamela Quiroz received support from a Great Cities Institute fellowship from UIC during her research.