Choosing Selves: The Salience of Parental Identity in the School Choice Process

Autor/inn/en	Cucchiara, Maia Bloomfield; Horvat, Erin McNamara
Titel	Choosing Selves: The Salience of Parental Identity in the School Choice Process
Quelle	In: Journal of Education Policy, 29 (2014) 4, S.486-509 (24 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0268-0939
DOI	10.1080/02680939.2013.849760
Schlagwörter	Parent Attitudes; Self Concept; School Choice; Ethnography; Urban Areas; Educational Policy; Decision Making; Political Attitudes; Neighborhoods; Public Schools; Qualitative Research; Student Diversity; Institutional Characteristics; Interviews + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Elternverhalten; Selbstkonzept; Choice of school; Schulwahl; Ethnografie; Urban area; Stadtregion; Politics of education; Bildungspolitik; Decision-making; Entscheidungsfindung; Political attitude; Politische Einstellung; Neighbourhoods; Nachbarschaft; Public school; Öffentliche Schule; Qualitative Forschung; Interviewing; Interviewtechnik
Abstract	With the proliferation of choice policies in education, parents are increasingly positioned as "consumers" tasked with choosing the "best" school for their children. Yet a large body of research has shown that the process of selecting a school is far more complicated than policy-makers and researchers often predict. This article uses ethnographic data on middle-class parents in a large city who are considering sending their children to a diverse neighborhood public school to further develop our understanding of school choice. Drawing from sociological research on consumption as a social and cultural process, we examine the intersections between parents' choice of a particular school (i.e. consumption) and their own identity construction. Our data show that the "act" of choosing a school can become, for parents, a means of expressing and enacting a particular identity. In this case, the intersections between identity and choice pushed many parents--invested in seeing themselves as liberal urbanites--towards an urban public school. We suggest that similar dynamics could have different outcomes for other groups of parents and that the symbolic nature of the school choice decision has broader relevance and merits further study. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10