Family | Home | School

Abstract

Under an education as property framework, the state grants residents who live within a school district’s border an ownership interest in that district’s schools. This interest includes the power to exclude nonresidents. To attend school in a school district, a child must prove that he lives at an in-district address and is a bona-fide resident. But in highly sought-after districts and schools, establishing a child’s bona fide residence may be highly contested.

In this Essay, I show that education law, policies, and practices fail to recognize a child’s residence when the child’s family and living situation do not comport with a particular ideal of family life. This ideal is rooted in the archetype of the White, middle-class nuclear family headed and controlled by two parents and living in a single dwelling around which all family life revolves – a “home.” While this idea may be normative familiar, it is elusive for many families. For many families, especially the race-class-gender subordinated, “family” looks and functions differently from the archetype. Parents are rarely the only or primary caregivers for children in these families, and home-making is likely to occur across multiple sites, not just one “home.” By valorizing the nuclear family and its accouterments – and refusing to consider other family forms as sufficient to establish residency – residency requirements not only impede access to educational resources for those who are most in need, they entrench a race-class-gender specific ideal of the family and ignore the reality of how many families actually function.

Keywords: education, race, family, gender, class

JEL Classification: K