Sociology Program and Africana Studies Program Present
School Choice?
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium
4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Mary Pattillo
Harold Washington Professor of Sociology & African American Studies
Northwestern University
School choice is promoted as one strategy to improve educational outcomes for African Americans. Key themes in Black school choice politics are empowerment, control, and agency.Harold Washington Professor of Sociology & African American Studies
Northwestern University
Using qualitative interviews with poor and working-class Black parents in Chicago, Pattillo explored: how do these themes characterize the experiences of low-income African American parents tasked with putting their children in schools?
Also, what kind of political positions emerge from parents’ everyday experiences given the ubiquitous language of school choice?
Parents’ stories convey limited and weak empowerment, limited individual agency, and no control. What should we learn?
Mary Patillo is the author of Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class and Black on the Block: the Politics of Race and Class in the City; she co-edited Imprisoning America: the Social Effects of Mass Incarceration.
For more information, call 845-758-7667, or e-mail [email protected].
Time: 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Location: Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium