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Making The Choice: African-Americans And Decisions About Enrollment At Chartered And Non-Chartered Public Schools

Boughton, Heather R.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1226340853

Abstract Details

2008, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Sociology.
Over a century after the establishment of free public schooling and fifty years after the Supreme Court emphasized the importance of inclusion in the Brown v. Board of Education decision, the United States still struggles to provide a high quality education to all students. African-Americans are particularly affected by disparities in schooling; concentrated in school districts with fewer resources and high levels of community disadvantage, African-American students remain behind in terms of both academic achievement and graduation rates. Faced with persistent inequities in public education, many African-American parents are now turning to charter schools as alternative school options. Among some black political leaders and academics, however, there is concern that charter schools will not have a positive long-term impact on the African-American community. Given the potential conflict between criticisms of charter schools and their immediate desire for change, it is possible that African-American parents experience a sense of cognitive dissonance as they decide where to enroll their children in school. In one-on-one interviews with forty parents in an Ohio metropolitan city, I explored this possibility and found that parents do not describe their school choice process in terms of dissonance. Rather, my participants acknowledged racial inequality and maintained an interest in change for the greater good of the community, while at the same time expressing individualistic views about their own child's educational experiences. That is, parents were able to successfully separate their individualistic need for better schooling from their desire to see collective change. Parents' individualistic perspective on education was fueled by a lack of faith in the government's ability to provide their children with a high-quality education. Because they did not expect significant changes in the public school system, my participants felt compelled to take personal control of their child's education by actively engaging in school choice.
Douglas Downey, PhD (Advisor)
Vincent Roscigno, PhD (Committee Member)
J. Craig Jenkins, PhD (Committee Member)
128 p.
African Americans; Education; Sociology
School Choice; Charter Schools; African-Americans; Individualism; Cognitive Dissonance; Education; Inequality

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Boughton, H. R. (2008). Making The Choice: African-Americans And Decisions About Enrollment At Chartered And Non-Chartered Public Schools [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1226340853

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Boughton, Heather. Making The Choice: African-Americans And Decisions About Enrollment At Chartered And Non-Chartered Public Schools. 2008. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1226340853.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Boughton, Heather. "Making The Choice: African-Americans And Decisions About Enrollment At Chartered And Non-Chartered Public Schools." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1226340853

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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© 2008, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.