Dissertation Diary #1: Abstract
A more formal overview of the main mixed-methods study of my dissertation
Before I start translating the key theoretical frameworks upon which my dissertation is crafted, it’s probably important for you to have a clearer sense of what *exactly* I’m setting out to do with my study. So here is a formal academic abstract I wrote for one of the many grant/fellowship apps I submitted this fall in hopes for securing fundings for my 6th (and final 🤞) year1:
Both space, as the geography of a district, and place, as the various socio-political meanings people attach to a space, play important roles in the decision-making processes of families. In K-12 education, families’ perceptions of the local public school are shaped by school-level characteristics that are publicly available or shared through neighbors’ and friends’ experiences, such as student behavior, attendance, and demographics. Community and urban sociological literature tells us that these place perceptions combine with social and spatial structural forces to perpetuate racial and economic segregation. Similar to the decoupling impact of charter and private schools, open enrollment likely weakens the ties between neighborhoods and their local schools, while simultaneously forging new connections with other neighborhoods via enrollment streams. This possibility presents a new dynamic worth studying, contributing to the school choice literature by explaining how the social context of neighborhoods and schools are connected through enrollment ties and how these connections impact the work of educating the students within these schools.
I examine this neighborhood-school dynamic through the case of the School District of Philadelphia (SDP). SDP is in the top ten list of largest school districts in the county and has a long history of embracing school choice initiatives; since 2014, students have the option to apply online for a seat in another district school. In the 2024-2025 school year, more than half of all K-8 students enrolled in a school other than their assigned catchment school, though the distribution of in-catchment enrollment is unevenly distributed. Given the prevalence of catchment mobility in school enrollment, SDP is an ideal case through which to conduct a mixed-methods dissertation project that examines of-catchment enrollment patterns across a large urban district and how teachers and administrators function in schools with geographically dispersed enrollment.
I address three main questions in my dissertation:
What neighborhood and school characteristics explain of-catchment enrollment?
How are catchment zones and public schools networked across the district, and what factors predict the existence and strength of an enrollment tie
How do teachers, staff, and school leaders respond to geographic dispersion in their student population, and does this vary by the school’s strength of enrollment ties?
This sequential mixed methods project will contribute to the sociology of education literature by emphasizing two understudied actors in school choice policy implementation - residential neighborhoods and traditional public schools - and provide policy and practice insight for districts eager to understand the wide-ranging influences and effects of open enrollment.
First, I employ a series of theoretically-motivated neighborhood and school-level enrollment factors to predict of-catchment enrollment, or the proportion of students living in a catchment zone who attend the catchment school; this measure reflects the neighborhood residents’ opting into the assigned public school option. I assess the association to this of-catchment enrollment with the concentrated disadvantage index, violent crime rate, and school choice availability of the catchment area, as well as the catchment school’s race/ethnicity classification and student engagement, measured by attendance and exclusionary discipline experiences.
To address RQ2, I draw on an emerging methodological approach in neighborhood effects research to studying neighborhood networks which enables me to generate, analyze, and visualize enrollment ties. This work, which has not yet been undertaken in the sociology of education field, will shed light on how neighborhoods and traditional public schools are differentially impacted by school choice. These quantitative analyses are key to understanding the social and structural forces influencing the geographic dispersion of students in a school choice landscape; however, they do not explain how this dispersion influences the day-to-day operation of schools.
To contribute to this knowledge gap, I am recruiting educators from four schools in SDP to address RQ3. The interviews will uncover how geographic dispersion impacts the work of school personnel and the operational and cultural priorities of a school and whether there are differences in approach based on strength of enrollment ties.
This study provides novel insight into the community-level implications of state and local education policy. The increasingly interconnected landscape of schools and neighborhoods may have important implications for the work of educators in urban districts and the overall student and family experiences of school and community. The findings will also illuminate the need to more precisely delineate the types of educational environments a student may experience within the data scholars and policymakers analyze to make recommendations on social and educational policies. Finally, in its partnership with SDP, this study provides key takeaways for evaluating the efficacy and community-orientation of SDP’s school selection processes.
TLDR/TADWTR2:
I’m trying to understand why some urban neighborhoods see so many of their elementary school-aged residents attending schools outside the local community, what these neighborhood connections look like throughout the city, and how these flows of students from a diverse set of neighborhoods into neighborhood public schools impact the work of teachers and administrators.
Or scroll down for a one-sentence summary if you’d prefer
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