Americans see the choice of a school for a child as an important matter. Indeed, it has been long understood that parents can buy their children access to “good” schools by buying a house in a “good” neighborhood. Yet, there is little research on how parents choose public schools which draw students from a catchment area; most of the research has been on the choice process in private, charter, or magnet schools. We propose a study of the strategies that white and black parents use to maximize the advantages they can provide for their children through their choice of a residence --- where they will live and where their children will go to public school. Specifically, we seek to the role their children’s schools play in their residential decision-making. We are also interested in the asset transfers that parents receive from their relatives that assist them in gaining access to the best school situation for their children. The study consists of in-depth interviews a total of 50 white and African-American families with young children in one large suburban county contiguous to a large Northeastern city. The sample consists of upper-middle-class, lower-middle-class, and working-class families. The children will be recruited from kindergarten classrooms in public schools serving a variety of different neighborhood types. We will seek to confirm the findings from the qualitative data via an analysis of the nationally representative Panel Study of Income Dynamics.
