Skip to main content
  • 144 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter discusses the setting and methodology of the project, as well as introduces the study participants. Mayfair is a wealthy, highly elite, and predominantly white town in the Northeastern United States which has the unusual feature of giving access to its public high school to non-residents of color via two voluntary racial desegregation programs. The town has partnered with the two programs, one a state-wide commuter program and one a national boarding program, for over 40 years in an effort to decrease racial isolation for all involved. Through in-depth interviews with 37 black and Latina women of relatively more modest means who graduated from the high school as town residents, commuters, and boarders, this study explores how each of the respective groups fared.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

eBook
USD 19.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 27.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Almeida, J., R.M. Johnson, M. McNamara, and J. Gupta. 2011. Peer Violence Perpetration Among Urban Adolescents: Dispelling the Myth of the Violent Immigrant. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 26(13): 2658–2680.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Annie E. Casey Foundation (2006). Race Matters: Unequal Opportunities in Education. November 25. http://www.aecf.org/m/resourcedoc/aecf-racemattersEDUCATION-2006.pdf. Accessed 14 March 2016.

  • Anson, R. 1988. Best Intentions. New York: First Vintage Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bankston, C., S. Caldas, and M. Zhou. 1997. The Academic Achievement of Vietnamese American Students: Ethnicity as Social Capital. Social Focus 30: 1–16.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P. 1986. The forms of capital. In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. J. Richardson, 241–258. New York: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P., and J. Passeron. 2000. Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bowen, W.G., and D.C. Bok. 1998. The Shape of the River: Long-term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Briggs, D. 1997. Social Capital and the Cities: Advice to Change Agents. National Civic Review 86(2): 111–117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown v. Board of Education, 347. S. 438 (1954).

    Google Scholar 

  • Calarco, J. 2014. Coached for the Classroom: Parents’ Cultural Transmission and Children’s Reproduction of Educational Inequalities. American Sociological Review 79(5): 1015–1037.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carter, P. 2015. Educational Equity Demands Empathy. Contexts, Fall 76–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. Stubborn Roots. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2007. Why the Black Kids Sit Together at The Stairs: The Role of Identity-Affirming Counter-Spaces in a Predominantly White High School. Journal of Negro Education 76(4): 542–554.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clotfelter, C. 2004. After “Brown”: The Rise and Retreat of School Desegregation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coleman, J. 1988. Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital. The American Journal of Sociology 94: S95–S120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1992. Some Points on Choice in Education. Sociology of Education 65(4): 260–262.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collins, P. 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, & the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cook, P., and J. Ludwig. 1998. The Burden of ‘Acting White’: Do Black Adolescents Disparage Academic Achievements? In The Black-White Test Score Gap, ed. C. Jencks and M. Phillips, 375–400. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cookson, P., and C. Persell. 1991. Race and Class in America’s Elite Boarding Schools: African Americans as the “Outsiders Within”. The Journal of Negro Education 60: 219–228.

    Google Scholar 

  • Crenshaw, K. 1989. Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, Issue 1.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1993. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color. Stanford Law Review 43(6): 1241–1299.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dominguez, S. 2011. Getting Ahead: Social Mobility, Public Housing, and Immigrant Networks. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Du Bois, W. 1994. The Souls of Black Folks. New York: Dover Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dufur, M., T. Parcel, and K. Troutman. 2013. Does Capital at Home Matter More Than Capital at School? Social Capital Effects on Academic Achievement. Research in Social stratification and Mobility 31: 1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dumais, S.A. 2002. Cultural Capital, Gender, and School Success: The Role of Habitus. Sociology of Education 75(1): 44–68. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/docview/60079357?accountid=11311

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eaton, S. 2001. The Other Boston Busing Story. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2007. The Children in Room E4. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Enos, R. 2014. The Causal Effect of Intergroup Contact on Exclusionary Attitudes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111(10): 3699–3704.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Enos, R. & C. Celaya. (forthcoming). The Effect of Segregation on Intergroup Relations.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farmer, J. 1965/2007. Freedom—When? New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Flippen, C. 2016. The More Things Change the More they Stay the Same: The Future of Residential Segregation in America. City & Community 15(1): 14–17.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fordham, S., and J. Ogbu. 1986. Black students’ school success: Coping with the “burden of ‘acting white’”. The Urban Review 18(3): 176–206.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fryer, R., and S. Levitt. 2006. The Black-White Test Score Gap Through Third Grade. American Law and Economics Review 8(2): 249–281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2013. Testing for Racial Differences in the Mental Ability of Young Children. American Economic Review 103(2): 981–1005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fryer, R. & V. Curto. 2014. The Potential of Urban Boarding Schools for the Poor: Evidence from SEED. Journal of Labor Economics 32(1): 65–93.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, M. 1988. Accommodation without Assimilation: Sikh Immigrants in an American High School. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, M., and J. Ogbu. 1991. Minority status and schooling: A comparative study of immigrant vs. involuntary minorities. New York: Garland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glaser, B., and A. Strauss. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hart & Risley. 1995. Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co..

    Google Scholar 

  • Holland, M. 2012. Only Here for the Day: The Social Integration of Minority Students at a Majority White High School. Sociology of Education 85(2): 101–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horvat, E., and A. Antonio. 1999. “Hey, Those Shoes Are Out of Uniform”: African American Girls in an Elite High School and the Importance of Habitus. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 30(3): 317–342.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ispa-Landa, S. 2013. Gender, Race, and Justifications for Group Exclusion: Urban Black Students Bussed to Affluent Suburban Schools. Sociology of Education 86(3): 218–233.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jack, A. 2016. (No)Harm in Asking: Class, Acquired Cultural Capital, and Academic Engagement at an Elite University. Sociology of Education 89(1): 1–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Khan, S. 2011. Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jencks, C., and M. Phillips. 1998. The Black-White Test Score Gap. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kasinitz, P., J. Mollenkopf, M. Waters, and J. Holdaway. 2009. Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age. Cambridge, MA: Russell Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kena, G., L. Musu-Gillette, J. Robinson, X. Wang, A. Rathbun, J. Zhang, S. Wilkinson-Flicker, A. Barmer, and E. Dunlop Velez. 2015. The Condition of Education 2015 (NCES 2015-144). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch.

  • Kendrick, S., and P. Kendrick. 2004. Sarah’s Long Walk. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kozol, J. 1995. Amazing Grace. New York: Crown Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. The Shame of the Nation. New York: Crown Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamont, M., and M. Fournier. 1992. Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lareau, A. 2011. Unequal Childhoods. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2015. Cultural Knowledge and Social Inequality. The American Sociological Review 80(1): 1–27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, J., and M. Zhou. 2015. The Asian American achievement paradox. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacDonald, M. 1999. All Souls. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massey, D., and N. Denton. 1993. American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ogbu, J. 1992. Adaptation to Minority Status and Impact on School Success. Theory into Practice XXXI(4): 287–295.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Orfield, G., J. Kuscera, and G. Siegel-Hawley. 2012. E Pluribus … Separation: Deeping Double Segregation for More Students. Los Angeles: UCLA, The Civil Rights Project.

    Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, M., J. Brooks-Gunn, G. Duncan, P. Klebanov, and J. Crane. 1998. Family Background, Parenting Practices, and the Black-White Test Score Gap. In The Black-White Test Score Gap, ed. C. Jencks and M. Phillips, 103–148. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Planty, M., Hussar, W., Snyder, T., Kena, G., Kewal Ramani, A., Kemp, J., Bianco, K., Dinkes, R. 2009. The Condition of Education 2009 (NCES 2009-081). National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, R. 2000. Bowling Alone. New York: Simon & Schuster.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • “Quickfacts”. Census.gov. Accessed on April 27th, 2014.

  • Reardon, S., and A. Owens. 2014. 60 Years after Brown: Trends and Consequences of School Segregation. Annual Review of Sociology 40: 199–218.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roberts v. City of Boston. Supreme Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk. 59 Mass. 198. 1849.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheff v. O'Neill, 238 Conn. 1, 678 A.2d 1267. 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, T. 2015. Digest of Education Statistics 2013. U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephens-Davidowitz, S. 2014. The Cost of Racial Animus on a Black Candidate. The Journal of Public Economics 118(26): 15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stetser, M., and R. Stillwell. 2014. Public High School Four-Year On-Time Graduation Rates and Event Dropout Rates: School Years 2010–11 and 2011–12. First Look (NCES 2014-391). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Theoharis, Jeanne. 2009. I Hate it when People treat me like a FXXX-Up. In Our Schools Suck, ed. G. Alonso, N. Anderson, C. Su, and J. Theoharis, 69–112. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly, C. 1999. Durable Inequality. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tocqueville, A.D., J.P. Mayer, and G. Lawrence. 2006. Democracy in America. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, V. 1969. The Ritual Process. New York: Transaction Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tyson, K. 2011. Integration Interrupted: Tracking, Black Students, and Acting White after Brown. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Department of Education. (2002). No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1965. Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, W. 1980. The Declining Significance of Race. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2015. William Julius Wilson says his Arguments on Race and Class Still Apply. Footnotes 43(6).

    Google Scholar 

  • Zweigenhaft, R., and G. Domhoff. 1991. Blacks in the White Establishment: A Study of Race and Class in America. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2003. Blacks in the White Elite: Will the Progress Continue? Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Simpson Bueker, C. (2017). The World of Mayfair. In: Experiences of Women of Color in an Elite US Public School. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50633-3_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50633-3_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-50632-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-50633-3

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics