Research

Dissertation — Navigating community: A critical geography of schools, gentrification, and resistance to displacement amidst residential rezoning

U.S. metropolitan areas are experiencing racial and class demographic change, which impacts schools. These shifting demographics come from a long history of American racism and capitalism. In response to these systems and sometimes aligned with them, people have “made place,” including investing in their neighborhood schools. Public policy plays into this process, with residential zoning impacting housing affordability and access to schools. Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan determines residential zoning in the city for the next twenty years, with critical implications for equity in one of the fastest growing and gentrifying cities in the county. Using a critical spatial and politics of education lens, I investigate the intersections of schools and the residential rezoning plan. This case study interrogates policy documents, public comments, public zoning meetings, and interviews with school leaders, staff, community organizers, and parents to understand how zoning, demographic change, and gentrification and displacement influence schools. This case study also considers how people connected to gentrifying schools make place.

Racial equity and school improvement

PI: Jessica Rigby

Team: Sarah Clancey & Jen Gaul

I work with a UW team to understand how organizations think about and enact equity in their continuous improvement work.

This project has spanned over three years, including development of a “rubric” for organizational equity in continuous improvement, document analysis, and interviews with various stakeholders at different organizational levels.

We have presented findings to academic and practitioner audiences, including conducting learning sessions for educators engaged in school improvement work.

Gentrification, policymaking, and schools under racial capitalism

Gentrification of cities, an increasingly common phenomenon across U.S. cities, poses challenges for school districts. Scholars have examined these challenges, including the role of families and principals in influencing gentrification. However, less research focuses on policymakers to understand shifting school contexts. This qualitative study examines how policymakers frame the relationship between gentrification and schooling. Using racial capitalism and framing theory, I analyze interviews and documents from Seattle. Participants framed the connection between gentrification, race, and access to schools generally in two ways, either as systems-wide or siloed. I discuss policy implications for this framing and for equitable schools and neighborhoods.