Abstract
School choice parental practices have been extensively researched worldwide. Recently, an emergent line of studies has focused on the case of mostly white middle-class parents, who, in contrast to the dominant trend identified by sociological research, choose or are willing to choose a socially, racially and/or ethnically diverse school for their children. The purpose of this article is to review the literature published between 2000 and 2017 on this nascent field, exploring the characteristics of families’ ‘against the grain’ choice processes, the parental practices deployed for managing school diversity, and their consequences for intra-school integration. Results highlight (a) the tensions underlying parental choices for diversity, (b) the multiple individual and collective practices that families implement to confront sociocultural school mix, and (c) the implications for the emergence of social and racial/ethnic intra-school segregation and power dynamics within communities. Based on the findings presented, the article discusses suggestions for further research.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ball, S. (1998). Big policies/small world: An introduction to international perspectives in education policy. Comparative Education, 34(2), 119–130. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050069828225.
Ball, S. (2003). Class strategies and the education market. The middle classes and social advantage. London and New York: Routledge Farmer.
Ball, S. (2006). Education policy and social class. The selected works of Stephen J. Ball. London: Routledge.
Ball, S., & Gewirtz, S. (1997). Is research possible? A rejoinder to Tooley’s ‘On school choice and social class’. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 18(4), 575–586. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142569970180406.
Ball, S., Rollock, N., Vincent, C., & Gillborn, D. (2013). Social mix, schooling and intersectionality: Identity and risk for black middle-class families. Research Papers in Education, 28(3), 265–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2011.641998.
Berends, M., Springer, M., Ballou, D., & Walberg, H. (Eds.). (2009). Handbook of research on school choice. New York: Routledge.
Billingham, C. (2015). Parental choice, neighborhood schools, and the market metaphor in urban education reform. Urban Studies, 52(4), 685–701. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098014528395.
Billingham, C., & Kimelberg, S. M. (2013). Middle-class parents, urban schooling, and the shift from consumption to production of urban space. Sociological Forum, 28(1), 85–108. https://doi.org/10.1111/socf.12004.
Boterman, W. (2013). Dealing with diversity: Middle-class family households and the issue of ‘Black’ and ‘White’ schools in Amsterdam. Urban Studies, 50(6), 1130–1147.
Bourdieu, P. (1999). The contradictions of inheritance. In P. Bourdieu (Ed.), The weight of the world: Social suffering in contemporary society (pp. 507–513). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Butler, T., Hamnett, C., & Ramsden, M. J. (2013). Gentrification, education and exclusionary displacement in East London. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37(2), 556–575. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12001.
Byrne, B. (2006). In search of a ‘good mix’: ‘Race’, class, gender and practices of mothering. Sociology, 40(6), 1001–1017. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038506069841.
Byrne, B. (2009). Not just class: Towards an understanding of the whiteness of middle class schooling choice. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 32(3), 424–441. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870802629948.
Byrne, B., & De Tona, C. (2014). Multicultural desires? Parental negotiation of multiculture and difference in choosing secondary schools for their children. Sociological Review, 62(3), 475–493. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-954x.12076.
Crozier, G., Reay, D., & James, D. (2011). Making it work for their children: White middle-class parents and working-class schools. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 21(3), 199–216. https://doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2011.616343.
Crozier, G., Reay, D., James, D., Jamieson, F., Beedell, P., Hollingworth, S., et al. (2008). White middle-class parents, identities, educational choice and the urban comprehensive school: Dilemmas, ambivalence and moral ambiguity. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 29(3), 261–272. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690801966295.
Cucchiara, M. (2008). Re-branding urban schools: Urban revitalization, social status, and marketing public schools to the upper middle class. Journal of Education Policy, 23(2), 165–179. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680930701853088.
Cucchiara, M. (2013). “Are we doing damage?” Choosing an urban public school in an era of parental anxiety. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 44(1), 75–93. https://doi.org/10.1111/aeq.12004.
Cucchiara, M., & Horvat, E. M. (2009). Perils and promises: Middle-class parental involvement in urban schools. American Educational Research Journal, 46(4), 974–1004. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831209345791.
Cucchiara, M., & Horvat, E. M. (2014). Choosing selves: The salience of parental identity in the school choice process. Journal of Education Policy, 29(4), 486–509. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2013.849760.
Forsey, M., Davies, S., & Walford, G. (2008). The globalisation of school choice? (Vol. 19). Oxford: Symposium Books.
Freidus, A. (2016). “A great school benefits us all”: Advantaged parents and the gentrification of an urban public school. Urban Education. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085916636656.
Goyette, K. (2014). Setting the context. In K. Goyette & A. Lareau (Eds.), Choosing homes, choosing schools (pp. 1–24). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Hassrick, E. M., & Schneider, B. (2009). Parent surveillance in schools: A question of social class. American Journal of Education, 115(2), 195–225. https://doi.org/10.1086/595665.
Ho, C., Vincent, E., & Butler, R. (2015). Every day and cosmo-multiculturalisms: Doing diversity in gentrifying school communities. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 36(6), 658–675. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2015.1095715.
Hollingworth, S., & Williams, K. (2010). Multicultural mixing or middle-class reproduction? The white middle classes in London comprehensive schools. Space and Polity, 14(1), 47–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562571003737767.
Holme, J. (2002). Buying homes, buying schools: School choice and the social construction of school quality. Harvard Educational Review, 72(2), 177–205. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.72.2.u6272x676823788r.
James, D. (2015). How Bourdieu bites back: Recognising misrecognition in education and educational research. Cambridge journal of education, 45(1), 97–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2014.987644.
James, D., Reay, D., Crozier, G., Beedell, P., Hollingworth, S., Jamieson, F., et al. (2010). Neoliberal policy and the meaning of counterintuitive middle-class school choices. Current Sociology, 58(4), 623–641. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392110368003.
Kimelberg, S. M. (2014). Beyond test scores: Middle-class mothers, cultural capital, and the evaluation of urban public schools. Sociological Perspectives, 57(2), 208–228. https://doi.org/10.1177/0731121414523398.
Kimelberg, S. M., & Billingham, C. (2012). Attitudes toward diversity and the school choice process: Middle-class parents in a segregated urban public school district. Urban Education, 48(2), 198–231. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085912449629.
Kroeger, J. (2005). Social heteroglossia: The contentious practice or potential place of middle-class parents in home–school relations. The Urban Review, 37(1), 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-005-3559-1.
Lamont, M., & Molnár, V. (2002). The study of boundaries in the social sciences. Annual Review of Sociology, 28(1), 167–195. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.28.110601.141107.
Levin, B. (1998). An epidemic of education policy: (What) can we learn from each other? Comparative Education, 34(2), 131–141. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050069828234.
Levine-Rasky, C. (2008). Middle-classness and whiteness in parents’ responses to multiculturalism: A study of one school. Canadian Journal of Education, 31(2), 459–490.
Levine-Rasky, C. (2009). Dynamics of parent involvement at a multicultural school. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(3), 331–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690902812604.
Levine-Rasky, C. (2011). Intersectionality theory applied to whiteness and middle-classness. Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 17(2), 239–253. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2011.558377.
Lewis, A. (2003). Everyday race-making. Navigating racial boundaries in schools. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(3), 283–305. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764203256188.
Lewis, A. (2004). “What group?” Studying whites and whiteness in the era of “color-blindness”. Sociological Theory, 22(4), 623–646. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0735-2751.2004.00237.x.
Musset, P. (2012). School choice and equity: Current policies in OECD countries and a literature review. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/5k9fq23507vc-en.
Neal, S., & Vincent, C. (2013). Multiculture, middle class competencies and friendship practices in super-diverse geographies. Social and Cultural Geography, 14(8), 909–929. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2013.837191.
Nogueira, M. A. (2010). A revisited theme—Middle classes and the school. In M. Apple, S. Ball, & L. A. Gandin (Eds.), The Routledge international handbook of the sociology of education (pp. 253–263). Abingdon: Routledge.
OECD. (2010). Latin American economic outlook 2011. How middle-class is Latin America?. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/leo-2011-en.
Olmedo, A., & Santa Cruz, L. E. (2011). El proceso de valoración de los centros educativos por parte de las familias de clase media. El papel del orden expresivo en la búsqueda de la “distinción”. Papers, 96(6), 515–537. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/papers/v96n2.150.
Oría, A., Cardini, A., Ball, S., Stamou, E., Kolokitcha, M., Vertigan, S., et al. (2007). Urban education, the middle classes and their dilemmas of school choice. Journal of Education Policy, 22(1), 91–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680930601065791.
Plank, D. N., & Sykes, G. (2003). Choosing choice: School choice in international perspective. New York: Teachers College Press.
Posey-Maddox, L. (2012). Middle- and upper-middle-class parent action for urban public schools: Promise or paradox? Teachers College Record, 114(1), 122–164.
Posey-Maddox, L. (2013). Professionalizing the PTO: Race, class, and shifting norms of parental engagement in a city public school. American Journal of Education, 119(2), 235–260. https://doi.org/10.1086/668754.
Posey-Maddox, L. (2016). Beyond the consumer: Parents, privatization, and fundraising in US urban public schooling. Journal of Education Policy, 31(2), 178–197. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2015.1065345.
Posey-Maddox, L., Kimelberg, S. M., & Cucchiara, M. (2014). Middle-class parents and urban public schools: Current research and future directions. Sociology Compass, 8(4), 446–456. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.12148.
Raveaud, M., & van Zanten, A. (2007). Choosing the local school: Middle class parents’ values and social and ethnic mix in London and Paris. Journal of Education Policy, 22(1), 107–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680930601065817.
Reay, D. (1998). Rethinking social class: Qualitative perspectives on class and gender. Sociology, 32(2), 259–275. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038598032002003.
Reay, D. (2008a). Class out of place: The white middle classes and intersectionalities of class and race in urban state schooling in England. In L. Weis (Ed.), The way class works. Readings on school, family and the economy. New York: Routledge.
Reay, D. (2008b). Psychosocial aspects of white middle-class identities: Desiring and defending against the class and ethnic ‘other’ in urban multi-ethnic schooling. Sociology, 42(6), 1072–1088. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038508096934.
Reay, D. (2014). White middle-class families and Urban comprehensives: The struggle for social solidarity in an era of amoral familism. Families, Relationships and Societies, 3(2), 235–249. https://doi.org/10.1332/204674314X14008565988654.
Riehl, C. (2001). Bridges to the future: The contributions of qualitative research to the sociology of education. Sociology of Education, 74, 115–134. https://doi.org/10.2307/2673257.
Roberts, A., & Lakes, R. D. (2016). Middle-class mothers on urban school selection in gentrifying areas. Education and Urban Society, 48(3), 203–220. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013124514530152.
Roda, A., & Wells, A. S. (2013). School choice policies and racial segregation: Where white parents’ good intentions, anxiety, and privilege collide. American Journal of Education, 119(2), 261–293. https://doi.org/10.1086/668753.
Rollock, N., Gillborn, D., Vincent, C., & Ball, S. (2015). The colour of class. The educational strategies of the Black middle classes. Abingdon: Roudtlege.
Saporito, S., & Lareau, A. (1999). School selection as a process: The multiple dimensions of race in framing educational choice. Social Problems, 46(3), 418–439. https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.1999.46.3.03x0253s.
Scott, J., & Holme, J. (2016). The political economy of marked-based educational policies: Race and reform in urban school districts, 1915 to 2016. Review of Research in Education, 40, 250–297. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X16681001.
van Zanten, A. (2015). The determinants and dynamics of school choice: A comparative review. In P. Seppänen, A. Carrasco, M. Kalalahti, R. Rinne, & H. Simola (Eds.), Contrasting dynamics in education politics of extremes school choice in Chile and Finland (pp. 3–28). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Van Zanten, A., & Ball, S. (2002). La construction des ségrégations scolaires en France et en Angleterre. In Ministère de l’Éducation (Ed.), La discrimination positive en France et dans le monde (pp. 33–53). Paris: CNDP.
Verger, A., Fontdevila, C., & Zancajo, A. (2016). The privatizacion of education. A political economy of global education reform. New York: Teachers College Press.
Vincent, C., Neal, S., & Iqbal, H. (2017). Encounters with diversity: Children’s friendships and parental responses. Urban Studies, 54(8), 1974–1989. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098016634610.
Vowden, K. J. (2012). Safety by numbers? Middle-class parents and social mix in London primary schools. Journal of Education Policy, 27(6), 731–745. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2012.664286.
Warren, J. T. (1999). Whiteness and cultural theory: Perspectives on research and education. The Urban Review, 31(2), 185–203. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:102323564671.
Weck, S., & Hanhörster, H. (2015). Seeking urbanity or seeking diversity? Middle-class family households in a mixed neighborhood in Germany. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 30(3), 471–486. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-014-9425-2.
Williams, K., Jamielson, F., & Hollingworth, S. (2008). ‘He was a bit of delicate thing’: White middle-class boys, gender, school choice and parental anxiety. Gender and Education, 20(6), 399–408. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540250802190230.
Wilson, H. F. (2014). Multicultural learning: Parent encounters with difference in a Birmingham primary school. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 39(1), 102–114. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12015.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Alejandro Carrasco for his valuable comments on ealier drafts of this manuscript, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback. Funding was provided by Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (CL) (Grant Nos. CONICYT PFCHA/DOCTORADO NACIONAL/2016-21160130 and CONICYT PIA CIE160007).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendix
Appendix
See Table 1.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hernández, M. White Middle-Class Families and Sociocultural Diversity in Schools: A Literature Review. Urban Rev 51, 270–300 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-018-0477-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-018-0477-6