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Title: Elementary School Construction in Cambridge, 1960-1979: Reconstructing the Role of Space, Race, and Class in School Assignment Decisions
Citation Type: Conference Paper
Publication Year: 2011
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Abstract: This paper explores school construction and renovation practices in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the 1960s and 1970s. During the decade-long debate over school desegregation, local and state officials often wondered whether the city had a history of intentional school segregation, given the racial imbalance in its schools. While Cambridge never formally acknowledged overt efforts to separate black and white children, questions lingered about how the city had drawn attendance boundaries and selected sites for new school buildings. What factors informed decisions about elementary school construction and school attendance zones in the 1960s and 1970s? We are particularly interested in understanding if and how racial, linguistic, and class considerations affected school construction and school districting during this period. We assert that spatial analysis is a particularly useful way to understand and illuminate the historical linkage between educational opportunity and residential inequality in the post-war period. Drawing from School Committee records, newspaper articles, school reports, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis of census, housing, and school data, our paper focuses on one of the largest elementary school construction programs in the citys history.
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Authors: Zhang, Yinan; Anderson, Andy; Fisher, Josephine; Moss, Hilary
Conference Name: Social Science History Association
Publisher Location: Boston, MA
Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS
Topics: Education, Housing and Segregation, Race and Ethnicity
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