Place- and Displacement of parents and schools in marginalized urban educational markets.

Author(s):

Anne Jurczok(presenting / submitting)Tilman Drope(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research

Format:

Paper

Session Information

14 SES 09 B, School-Related Transitions Within a Life Course Perspective (Part 4)

Paper Session: continued from 14 SES 01 B, 14 SES 02 B, 14 SES 08 B

Time:

2014-09-04

11:00-12:30

Room:

B326 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Aitor Gomez

Contribution

In times of demographic change in Germany to enhance the educational participation rate of ethnic minorities and working class children does not only promise to solve the lack of qualified personnel but also helps to reduce educational inequalities. One educational policy which is directed at tackling educational disadvantage and participation is the reform of the secondary school system and school choice policy in Berlin. Starting with the academic year 2010/11 the former multi-tier secondary school system was reduced to only two school types which both lead to the highest academic school certificate. This increases educational opportunities since all schools are a possible choice option for parents with high educational aspiration. Along with free school choice both policies shall reduce the social injustice that the early selection of students in Germany produced (Klieme et al., 2010). The experience from other European countries who already liberalized their school system show us that especially school choice is linked to residential segregation and urban change (see Karsten et al., 2006; Bunar, 2011; Harris, 2011).

Especially in marginalized urban areas, which are characterized by poverty, unemployment and ethnic segregation, the story about school choice and its segregational effects is told out of the perspective of the middle classes. Middle classes either flee to the suburbs, intensify the competition for the ‘acceptable middle class’ schools and/or colonize the neighbourhood schools and shift the schools’ attention on their requests (Reay et al., 2011). Either way, they seem to prevail over the contested school places. Those “left behind” are assumed to make inferior school choice decisions because they are left with schools that are not fitting the ideal of the middle class school. In rational choice theory those choices are explained by their lack of resources (information, money, educational status) or their choice is characterized as passive (Kristen, 2005).

However, in a school choice program where choice is not an option but a necessity we need to explore further the local educational market of marginalized urban areas and how families in those areas choose their school. Little is yet known about how marginalized groups perceive their local educational market and what they perceive as good schools (see Bunar, 2010). If we assume complex decision-making processes on the demand-side of school choice, we also need to address the supply side. Schools in urban marginalized areas need to compete for students. They may either be schools’ “of the neighbourhood” where the students intake consists of local students. Those schools try to find answers to the problems caused by poverty and language deficiencies. Or they are schools who are just “in the neighbourhood”, trying to compete for the few middle class students and thrive an intake that goes beyond the students available in their area.

Only if we know how parents and their children as well as schools place themselves in their educational market in contrast to the other member of their alleged group and schools we might be able to pin down segregational causes that exceed the notion of white flight.

Method

The research was a collaboration between the DIPF (German Institute of Pedagogical Research) and the University of Potsdam. The University of Potsdam carried out a survey with 360 parents, where over two thirds have a background of ethnic minority. They were looking at the schools parents wanted their child to attend and which not and matched those answers with data about schools and their neighborhoods. Observations at open days of schools and interviews with school headmasters were carried out by the DIPF focusing on one local educational market and its construction through the supply side. The sampling area was a district in Berlin with a high proportion of people living in poverty and a high amount of people who have a migrational history. Both approaches complement each other by giving insights into parents’ place- or displacement in urban educational market and the attempt of schools’ to find a place in the local school markets.

Expected Outcomes

Shifting the focus away from a solely deficit-oriented analysis of ethnic school choice we try to analyse the inside of marginalized neighbourhoods. We find a variety of school choice motives and a diversity of schools. On the demand side we see that parents want to find the best school for their child. Just because families live in areas which urban researchers characterize as marginalized and middle class families avoid does not mean that the schools are inefficient and parents perceive those schools as bad. What our findings hint at are distinctions within the group of choosers concerning the usage of information which the school administration offers. On the supply we find a highly differentiated educational market in which school agents are able to explain how attractive their school is for families from marginalized areas and if they address them as a target group. The diversity in school provision and parents’ motives is high. We can see a sharp distinction within the school provision in marginalized urban areas. To read those distinctions by the group living there is the core of segregational processes and we try to contribute with our findings to the mechanism of segregational processes within marginalized areas.

References

BUNAR, N. (2010) The Geographies of Education and Relationships in a Multicultural City:. Enrolling in High-Poverty, Low-Performing Urban Schools and Choosing to Stay There. Acta Sociologica, 53, pp. 141–159. BUNAR, N. (2011) Segregation, education and urban policy in Sweden, in: J. BAKKER, E. DENESSEN, T. PETERS & G. WALRAVEN (Eds) International perspectives on countering school segregation (Antwerpen/Apeldoors : Garant). HARRIS, R. (2011) Segregation by Choice? Social and ethnic differences between English schools, in: J. BAKKER, E. DENESSEN, T. PETERS & G. WALRAVEN (Eds) International perspectives on countering school segregation (Antwerpen/Apeldoors : Garant). KARSTEN, S., FELIX, C., LEDOUX, G., MEIHNEN, W., ROELEVELD, J. & VAN SCHOOTEN, E. (2006) Choosing Segregation or Integration? :. The Extent and Effects of Ethnic Segregation in Dutch Cities. Education and Urban Society, 38, pp. 228–247. KLIEME, E., ARTELT, C., HARTIG JOHANNES, JUDE, N., KÖLLER, O., PRENZEL, M., SCHNEIDER, W. & STANAT, P. (Eds) (2010) PISA 2009. Bilanz nach einem Jahrzehnt (Münster, Westf, Waxmann). KRISTEN, C. (2005) School choice and ethnic school segregation. Primary school selection in Germany (Münster, Waxmann). REAY, D., CROZIER, G. & JAMES, D. (2011) White middle-class identities and urban schooling (Basingstoke [u.a.], Palgrave Macm

Author Information

Anne Jurczok (presenting / submitting)

Universität Potsdam

Department of Education

Potsdam

Tilman Drope (presenting)

DIPF, German Institute for International Educational Research

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