Placing 'the Child' in School

Since Brown vs. Board of Education, the understanding and geographic bounding of the 'school community' has been negotiated in policies that allow or insist that children attend schools that aren’t their local public school.... [ view full abstract ]

Since Brown vs. Board of Education, the understanding and geographic bounding of the 'school community' has been negotiated in policies that allow or insist that children attend schools that aren’t their local public school. While the desegregation movement and the school choice movement are generally seen as opposing movements (and understood by sociologists as having very different—even opposite—impacts on educational consequences for school equity), both reform movements frame a debate over where young people should go to school, assuming that some young people may be better served outside of their local public schools. What have we believed about children, and about the purpose of education, which compelled such reforms? What knowledge have advocates drawn upon to advocate for a shift in responsibility for "school equity" from the state to the parent?