Socially-Structured Mobility Networks and School Segregation Dynamics The Role of Emergent Consideration Sets

This study proposes and applies a novel method for empirically evaluating the role of social structure in the school sorting process. We use administrative records from Baltimore City and suburban Baltimore County public elementary schools (2011 to 2015) to generate a network of schools based on stu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inAmerican sociological review Vol. 85; no. 4; pp. 675 - 708
Main Authors Burdick-Will, Julia, Grigg, Jeffrey A., Nerenberg, Kiara Millay, Connolly, Faith
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA Sage Publications, Inc 01.08.2020
SAGE Publications
American Sociological Association
Subjects
Competence
Decision making
Demography
Elementary schools
Enrollments
Geography
Gravity
Mobility
Public schools
Racial Composition
School Segregation
Schools
Segregation
Social networks
Social structure
school mobility
segregation
decision-making
social networks
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Summary:This study proposes and applies a novel method for empirically evaluating the role of social structure in the school sorting process. We use administrative records from Baltimore City and suburban Baltimore County public elementary schools (2011 to 2015) to generate a network of schools based on student transfers. We then apply repeated calculations of the Louvian method of community detection to estimate emergent sets of schools that similar parents are likely to consider—which we term emergent consideration sets—and use gravity models to explore the role of social structure, demographics, and geography in observed enrollment patterns. We find that our network-derived emergent consideration sets are better defined by structural boundaries than by student composition or proficiency alone. Within consideration sets, students tend to avoid schools with relatively higher levels of free-and reduced-price meal eligibility and flock toward schools with higher proficiency levels. School racial composition, however, plays a much smaller role in predicting movement between schools, in part because structural constraints generate racially homogeneous consideration sets. Together, these findings highlight how regional social and geographic organization shapes school segregation processes and the policies used to combat them.
ISSN:0003-1224
1939-8271
DOI:10.1177/0003122420934739