The Process of Racial Resegregation in Housing and Schools: The Sociology of Reputation

Abstract

The United States has a long history of racial and ethnic segregation in housing patterns and public school enrollment as well as efforts to dismantle this segregation. This essay discusses what we have learned in the United States about how difficult it is to halt the patterns of housing and school segregation even as our nation becomes more diverse, racial attitudes are reportedly improving, and the twentieth century urban-suburban racial distinctions disappear. To explain the process of resegregation that occurs repeatedly, the author developed a new interdisciplinary framework to foster a deeper understanding of how racialized perceptions of places or neighborhoods and the schools embedded within them perpetuates segregation despite changing demographics, attitudes and metro migrations across urban-suburban lines. The sociology of reputation, the bias of crowds, and the choices of home buyers with the most capital amid the existing separate and unequal structures are the bodies of research the author draws upon to help us see familiar segregation patterns anew. EXISTING RESEARCH ON SEGREGATION AND WHAT IS MISSING Most research on racial segregation in housing and schools within the United States examines the degree and outcomes of racial segregation (Massey & Denton, 1993; Wells and Frankenberg, 2007) or school and housing choices that often result in increased racial and socioeconomic segregation as more affluent and white parents use powerful social networks to guide their preferences (Holme, 2002; Wells et al., 2014). While both lines of inquiry are important, what has been missing in the literature is an exploration of the reinforcing relationship between the individual choices and the segregated places and schools. In other words, rather than thinking of the housing and school choice process as a way those with the most options—namely affluent Whites—make individual decisions with input from their networks, Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Robert A. Scott and Marlis Buchmann (General Editors) with Stephen Kosslyn (Consulting Editor). © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.