Parent Sensemaking and School Choices Amidst Educational Controversies

From our 2023 collaborative study with the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice (REACH), this presentation explores the relationship between national political discourse, parent sensemaking, and School Choice. This longitudinal study aims to better understand the impact of national political discourse around race and gender on parents' School of Choice.

Exploring the Relationship between Parental Work Schedules and their Children’s School Attendance

From our 2023 Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management (APPAM) conference presentation on the relationship between nonstandard work schedules, child behavior, child health, parent stress, and school outcomes.

Exploring the Relationship Between Parental Work Schedules and Their Children’s School Attendance

Regular school attendance is associated with student academic achievement, while chronic absenteeism is a growing problem negatively associated with academic and socioemotional outcomes. While research has documented the significant influence of family socioeconomic conditions on student attendance, there is little empirical evidence documenting the potential mechanisms driving this relationship. This study illuminates one such mechanism by examining associations between parental work schedules and children’s school attendance. Using survey data on Detroit parents’ work schedules (N=1,390) linked to district-provided data on their children’s attendance, we find that, for two-parent households, children whose parents both worked nonstandard schedules were more likely to be chronically absent. Meanwhile, children with one unemployed parent and the other working a nonstandard schedule were less likely to be chronically absent. These findings add to our understanding of the distal impact of job inflexibility in the interconnected lives of working parents and their children.

Economic and Educational Opportunity in the Context of Neighborhood Change

Children growing up in segregated and under-resourced neighborhoods and schools have continuously faced structural inequities resulting in worse educational and economic outcomes. In highly segregated and under-resourced neighborhoods, one way that educational inequality persists is through inequitable access to resources and information through social networks. Federally sponsored housing programs have sought to address these inequities by disrupting concentrated poverty and racial segregation in neighborhoods, but one challenge of such programs has been their primary focus on housing, neglecting other neighborhood conditions and social resources. HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods Initiative (CNI) was established to address these prior limitations by strengthening community social cohesion through cross-sector collaborations. Prior research has demonstrated that social networks – one’s relationships and connections with others – could be a key driver of upward mobility for Black low-income youth. However, few studies have empirically explored how neighborhood interventions might expand or deepen the social connections of youth in ways that reduce inequality in educational opportunities. This study aims to describe and clarify the mechanisms through which a major federal housing initiative can reduce educational inequality for Black low-income youth by transforming their social networks. A second aim of this study is to examine whether key components of the CNI are implemented in ways that connect housing and school sectors to disrupt segregation, foster neighborhood and school integration, and empower residents, particularly low-income Black residents, to shape policy enactment.