Dissertation Title: How Parents Use School Choice to Move Beyond Diversity

Committee: Joyce Bell (chair), Eve Ewing, Robert Vargas

My research uses qualitative methodologies to examine the social contexts of education, race/ethnicity, and stratification. I grapple with questions surrounding the commodification of Blackness in social organizations as a way to denote organizational values of diversity and inclusion and, more broadly, how racism is perpetuated through social organizations. In my dissertation, I examine how parents make sense of neighborhood public schools among a school choice system through discussing the opening of a new neighborhood school in a historically-Black community. My interviews and content analysis explore how parents make sense of their choice to enroll their student in this upcoming neighborhood school that was formerly closed in order to integrate the district. I have also contributed my academic research capacities to reach public audiences as a former Research Fellow for NPR’s Peabody award-winning podcast, Throughline, and towards special projects through the Smart Museum.