Housing segregation is holding back the promise of Brown v. Board of Education

A recent research project by Diane Marano, J.D. (Rutgers School of Law, Camden 1978), Ph.D. (Rutgers Camden Childhood Studies Program 2014) examined pathways into juvenile gun acquisition, the uses and meanings of guns for juvenile offenders, and the ways guns and violence shaped youth identities.  In interviews conducted by the former Camden County assistant prosecutor at six juvenile facilities throughout New Jersey, incarcerated youth shared their perspectives on growing up in neighborhoods characterized by poverty, drugs, and violence.  The primary pathway to gun acquisition described by study participants was through entry into illegal street activities that exposed the young men to a perceived increased risk of violent victimization, beyond that which pervaded their neighborhoods as a whole.  While participants generally reported their initial gun acquisition to be for purposes of protection or defense, many eventually exploited the gun’s potential as a weapon of aggression, particularly for armed robbery, enforcing control over drug-selling territory, or street fighting.  Many of the young men expressed a desire to provide for their own needs and wants in order to decrease the financial burden on their struggling mothers.  Participants viewed guns as useful for protection, for economic gain, for acquiring or maintaining respect, for feeling powerful, and for enjoyment as consumer objects.  Guns also figured in masculine identities and socialization processes. These incarcerated young men, believing simultaneously that “a gun is a key to anything you wanna do” and that “people can’t just walk around with guns like it’s free”, found a space of opportunity in the streets, where they embraced a lifestyle that placed their autonomy and their liberty on a collision course. Insights into juvenile gun possession and use gained through this research are relevant to advancing prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation efforts, as well as in planning broader social and economic policy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please join us for our next seminar and book signing event:

 “Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools: New Research on How Parents Think about Key Life Decisions” 

 

A series of policy shifts over the past decade promises to change how Americans decide where to send their children to school. In theory, the expanded use of standardized test scores and the boom in charter schools will allow parents to evaluate their assigned neighborhood school, or move in search of a better option. But what kind of data do parents actually use while choosing schools? Are there differences among suburban and urban families? How do parents’ choices influence school and residential segregation? The chapters in Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools, a new edited volume by Annette Lareau and Kimberly Goyette, present a breakthrough analysis of the new era of school choice, and what it portends for American neighborhoods. The distinguished contributors to Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools investigate the complex relationships among education, neighborhood social networks, and larger patterns of inequality. 

For this presentation, Kimberly Goyette will provide the context for research that explores the intersections of residential and school segregation, home choices, and schooling decisions.  She will also briefly describe some of the main findings of the book and the ways that these choices differ across region, urban and surburban locations, and family demographic characteristics,  Annette Lareau will present in-depth the research from her chapter, which draws on interviews with parents in three suburban neighborhoods to analyze school-choice decisions. Surprisingly, she finds that middle- and upper-class parents do not rely on active research, such as school tours or test scores. Instead, their decision-making was largely informal and passive, with most simply trusting advice from friends and others in their network.

Little previous research has explored what role school concerns play in the preferences of white and minority parents for particular neighborhoods, and how the racial and economic makeup of both neighborhoods and schools mutually reinforce each other. Choosing Homes, Choosing Schools adroitly addresses this gap and provides a firmer understanding of how Americans choose where to live and send their children to school.

            

                                                            

                                                   

Annette Lareau, Ph. D.	Kim Goyette, Ph.D.
Stanley I. Sheerr Professor	Associate Professor
Department of Sociology	Department of Sociology
University of Pennsylvania	Temple University

 

 Thursday, May 8, 2014 – 12:15pm

Armitage Hall, 3rd floor, Faculty Lounge

 Lunch will be provided

(Books will be available for purchase)

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CURE seminars are free and open to the public.  No registration is required. 
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An important decision was handed down today in the Wisconsin voter ID case, decision and order.  The judge cited Professor Lori Minnite’s testimony in finding that the law unconstitutional and violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (pp. 18-19): “As Professor Minnite testified, the publicity surrounding photo ID legislation creates the false perception that voter-impersonation fraud is widespread, thereby needlessly undermining the public’s confidence in the electoral process.”