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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on parent principal relationships often ignores how some parental involvement can create challenges for school leaders. We analyze parent-principal relationships at an urban public K-8 school over a 30-year period, exploring how three different principals "managed" parental involvement. Our analysis reveals how these principals negotiated relationships with parents across the shifting race and class terrains of different eras. We argue that future investigations of parent-principal relationships should focus on the tensions and challenges inherent in these relationships, as well as the effort expended and the skill required by principals to effectively manage relations with parents in diverse school communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given recent trends, middle-class families may become an increasing presence in urban districts. Such parents could help secure badly needed resources and raise expectations. This study of parental involvement in two urban schools suggests that middle-class parental involvement may be more complex than often assumed. The authors find that middle-class parents bring myriad resources to urban schools and can be catalysts for change. However, the relationship between parental involvement and widespread benefit was mediated by parents' own goals and perspectives as well as by the larger social context. Furthermore, compared to a more individualistic approach to parental involvement, a collective orientation is more sustainable and has greater potential for benefiting all children in the school, without regard to their social class. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internal processes of higher education have implications for the cohesion and shape of societies as well as for the quality of life of individuals. The comparison of the historical evolution of access to higher education in the American and European/Romanian contrasted countries reveals the presence of several norms successively constraining the organization of access. These norms will reflect the transformation of both a legitimated social order, and the role of the higher education systems within societies. This article examines several aspects of higher education's role in relation to social equity and the related notion of meritocracy, especially as it relates to admission. Since the role of higher education is measured in terms of its contribution to achieving a fair and just society, questions on the impact of higher education are considered alongside issue(s) of access, equal opportunity and widening participation. To preview our argument, we argue that the development of a national standardized entrance exam in Romania would promote greater access and equity to higher education. Relying on comparison with the US context we show how the construction of merit especially in determining access to higher education is often socially constructed in such a way as to maintain the privilege of elites. Our examination of the US context illustrated how definitions of merit can be subverted and essentially become a proxy for membership in a particular social class or social group. While the ability of the elites in any society to affect the structure and rules governing access to scarce resources and experiences will continue, the introduction of standard measures and a national rather than local system can ameliorate these forces. The ability of higher education to maintain and promote equality of access is intimately linked to its ability to continue to provide value and remain relevant to the society it serves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1986 Fordham and Ogbu introduced the idea that black students continue to underperform in school because of their cultural opposition to "acting white." This notion of the burden of acting white and Ogbu's cultural ecological theory more broadly have provided one of the dominant theories used to explain the black-white achievement gap. The research presented here offers a reassessment of the burden of acting white and directs researchers to examine the variation to be found in students' peer groups. This article highlights the ability of students to sustain an authentic black identity and to achieve academically by effectively managing their academic success among their peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine how race and class influenced the lives of six African American high school seniors who attended a predominantly white, elite, independent secondary school. Race and class contributed to an organizational habitus of the school characterized by white and wealthy privilege. Interaction of that dominant habitus with the dissimilar individual habitus of the students resulted in a form of symbolic violence-symbolic violence the black students knowingly endured in exchange for the social mobility afforded by attending the elite school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deals with the expansion and improvement of urban universities through the development of community-university relationships as conceived in the collegiate ideal. Roots of the collegiate ideal; Goal of intellectual communities in an urban environment; Assumptions that underlie such ideal; Ways in which urban universities can expand the collegiate ideal.

This article presents a case study of parents' involvement with their third-grade children. Using interviews and classroom observations, the research revealed how some black parents, deeply concerned about the historical legacy of discrimination against blacks in schooling, approach the school with open criticisms. Since educators seek a positive and deferential role for parents in schooling, race appears to play an independent role in parents' ability to comply with educators' requests (although social class also mediates the ways in which black parents express their concerns). The results highlight the difference between possession and activation of capital and the value accorded displays of capital in particular settings. Taken together, the findings suggest the importance of focusing on moments of inclusion and exclusion in examining how individuals activate social and cultural capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]