2006 - Coloring Outside the Color Lines: Racial Segregation in Public Schools and their Attendance Boundaries

Attribution: Saporito, Salvatore, & Sohoni, Deenesh
Researchers: Deenesh SohoniSalvatore Saporito
University Affiliation: College of William and Mary
Email: sjsapo@wm.edu
Research Question:
Impact of student enrollment in private schools on levels of racial segregation across urban school districts.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Sociology of Education
Journal Entry: Vol. 79, No. 2, pp. 81-105
Year: 2006
Findings:
  • Lower percentages of White students attend public schools than are in their school attendance boundary.
  • Racial populations in schools are largely determined by the racial composition of their attendance boundaries.
  • Private schools located in the attendance boundary of a public school have a strong, negative impact on white public school enrollment.
  • The effects of schools of choice on segregation patterns between Whites and Hispanics are even more pronounced than between Blacks and Whites.
  • Public schools would be less racially segregated if all children living in a school district attended their local, neighborhood schools.
  • Private, magnet, and charter schools contribute to overall racial segregation within many school districts.
Keywords: ChoiceNeighborhoodPrivate SchoolsResidential SegregationSegregationRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeAnalysis Methods: Weighted Least Square Regressions Sampling Frame:School districts
Sampling Types: NonrandomAnalysis Units: SchoolData Types: Quantitative-Cross Sectional
Data Description:
  • GIS-based maps indicating the school attendance boundaries for the largest school districts in the country are linked with block level 2000 Census data.
  • 22 school districts are included (11.4% of all public school children, 3874 elementary schools) and the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 school years are analyzed. The districts are racially diverse.
  • Data from the 1999-00 and 2000-01 Common Core of Data from the National Center for Educational Statistics are used to obtain the racial composition of each school in the study.
  • Data from the 1999 Private School Survey are used.
  • Use the 22 largest U.S. school districts.
  • The study compares the actual racial composition of schools and the racial composition of school-aged children living in their corresponding attendance areas.
  • DV: percent student who are white in neighborhood public schools
  • IV: catchment area characteristics (% White, %White squared, % Hispanic, %Black, specialty school, private, magnet, charter).
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts