2009 - Switching Social Contexts: The Effects of Housing Mobility and School Choice Programs on Youth Outcomes

Attribution: DeLuca, Stefanie, & Dayton, Elizabeth
Researchers: Elizabeth DaytonStefanie DeLuca
University Affiliation: Johns Hopkins University
Email: sdeluca@jhu.edu
Research Question:
Assesses research on the educational and socialoutcomes for comparable youth who change school and neighborhood settings through unique housing policy and school voucher programs.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Annual Review of Sociology
Journal Entry: Vol. 35, pp. 457-491
Year: 2009
Findings:
  • The findings from these programs suggest that many low-income families are motivated to improve the well-being of their children’s environments by relocating to a new neighborhood or by coming up with the difference in tuition to help their child attend a higher-performing school.
  • The research reviewed here also shows that programs can significantly change the social environments of families and children, and they have successfully done so for thousands of youth.
  • Despite the ability for some of these programs to bring about context changes, it appears much more difficult to improve the educational outcomes of children.
  • Although the results vary by city and to some extent by design, the evidence to date does not suggest that these voucher programs have led to large gains in achievement for children.
Keywords: ChoiceHousingNeighborhoodVouchersRegions: NationalMethodologies: QualitativeResearch Designs: Case StudiesAnalysis Methods: Content Analysis Sampling Frame:Previous Studies
Sampling Types: NonrandomAnalysis Units: DocumentData Types: Qualitative
Data Description:
  • Reviews research from the following four housing mobility programs that took place in six cities, from as early as 1976 and as late as 2002.
  • 1. The Gautreaux Program — Between 1976 and 1990, the court remedy provided vouchers for more than 7000 families in the Chicago metro area to move to nonsegregated communities.
  • 2. Moving to Opportunity — Beginning in 1994, MTO gave public housing residents in high-poverty neighborhoods in five cities (New York, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, and Los Angeles) the opportunity to apply for a chance to receive a housing voucher. – 3. Yonkers’s and Program — The Yonkers Family and Community Project evaluated the outcomes for families who moved to new housing constructed in middle-class white majority neighborhoods through a 1985 desegregation court order in Yonkers, New York.
  • 4. Thompson program — in Baltimore, the Thompson program currently provides 2000 special housing vouchers to be given to plaintiff class members (former or current public housing families) to create housing opportunity in middle-class, mostly white areas of Baltimore City and the adjacent counties.
  • Also reviews research related to school voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, New York, Dayton, Washington, DC, and Chicago
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts