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Title: Do Irregularly Shaped School Attendance Zones Contribute to Racial Segregation or Integration?

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2016

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Abstract: This research investigates if and how much the shapes of school attendance zones contribute to racial segregation in schools. We find that the typical school attendance zone is relatively compact and resembles a square-like shape. Compact zones typically draw children from local residential areas, and since local areas are often racially homogeneous, this suggests that high levels of racial segregation in the largest school districts are largely structured by existing residential segregation. Still, this study finds that the United States contains some attendance zones with highly irregular shapessome of which are as irregular as the most irregular Congressional District. Although relatively rare, highly irregular attendance zones almost always contain racially diverse student populations. This racial diversity contributes to racial integration within their encompassing school districts. These findings contradict recent theoretical and empirical scholarship arguing that irregularly shaped zones contribute to racial segregation in schools. Our findings suggest that most racial segregation in school attendance zones is driven by large-scale segregation across residential areas rather than a widespread practice among school districts to exacerbate racial segregation by delineating highly irregularly shaped attendance zones.

Url: http://scu.sagepub.com/content/3/1/64

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Authors: Saporito, Salvatore; Van Riper, David

Periodical (Full): Social Currents

Issue: 1

Volume: 3

Pages: 64-83

Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS

Topics: Race and Ethnicity

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