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The Elephant in the Classroom: Why Is Diversity So Hard to Manage?

The gentrification of many of our big cities is providing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a large number of racially and socioeconomically integrated schools. "White flight in reverse" means that, for the first time in 40 years, school integration is logistically feasible in urban America, and without the mandatory busing that derailed earlier efforts. But to capitalize on this opportunity, urban schools that currently serve a predominantly poor and minority population must find a way to attract and retain the gentrifiers--mostly white, upper-middle-class, highly educated parents. That's easier said than done, because the schools these newcomers find in their gentrifying neighborhoods often embrace practices that they find off-putting and difficult to accept. Many upper-middle-class parents are willing to have their children be "the first" white kids in a school and are comfortable with the idea of their child being a superminority. When the idea takes on an actual shape, however, diversity's nonsuperficial elements often batter their sense of right and wrong, and they leave. After interviewing more than 50 of these gentrifiers about their school-choice process, I concluded that it is the substantive differences in parenting styles between the white, upper-middle-class parents and the nonwhite, less-affluent parents that are hindering school integration, as these parenting styles directly affect school culture and expectations. This article explores how the disparate cultures found in gentrifying neighborhoods clash in schools, and the pivotal role school leaders play in determining whether integration succeeds or fails, based on their ability and willingness to bridge the two worlds. Culture Clash The cultural differences between the newcomers and the old-timers in gentrifying neighborhoods can be easily, though inadequately, summarized: white, upper-middle-class families prefer a progressive and discursive style of interaction with their children, both at home and in school, and lower-income, nonwhite families prefer a traditional or authoritarian style of interaction with their children in these same venues. Annette Lareau's book, Unequal Childhoods, delves deeply into these contrasting styles and how they play out over a lifetime. In my research on school choice, one cultural disparity came up repeatedly as a reason for why white parents leave the schools they are trying to integrate. They were put off by near-constant yelling--from principals, teachers, school aides, and nonwhite parents who come to drop off and pick up their kids. The white parents were surprised to discover that not only is the authoritarian end of the schooling spectrum alive, which would be tolerable if not ideal, but also that their gentrifying neighborhood schools exhibit what these parents perceive to be an extreme and outdated education environment, characterized by strict discipline with yelling adults. Avery (pseudonyms are used for all of my interviewees), a white mom who was clearly resigned to the pervasiveness of this norm at her newly integrating school, explained that she was leaving "primarily because of the discipline issues. I figured the older, the higher up you got, the more effect there would be on him. I didn't know enough about the upper-grade teachers to automatically be comfortable, because I know there were some yellers in the bunch. And I didn't want him to get a yeller. It's a crapshoot every year who you're going to get." Amber was "appalled" by what she "saw in the hallways and in the cafeteria with the way some of the teachers would speak to students." She remembers many teachers "screaming at the students," and quickly concluded that "the pre-K was fine, but there was no way she was going to see the kindergarten year of that school." Erich used the word "insanity" to express his disdain for the yelling and strictness norm, which he attributed primarily to the administration: "There was just a lot of yelling in the halls, a lot of screaming at the kids. …