Micere Keels

Fifteen Years Later: Can Residential Mobility Programs Provide a Long-Term Escape From Neighborhood Segregation, Crime, and Poverty?

We examined whether the Gautreaux residential mobility program, which moved poor black volunteer families who were living in inner-city Chicago into more-affluent and integrated neighborhoods, produced long-run improvements in the neighborhood environments of the participants. We found that although all the participants moved in the 6 to 22 years since their initial placements, they continued to reside in neighborhoods with income levels that matched those of their placement neighborhoods. Families who were placed in higher-income, mostly white neighborhoods were currently living in the most-affluent neighborhoods. Families who were placed in lower-crime and suburban locations were most likely to reside in low-crime neighborhoods years later.

Gautreaux mothers and their children: an update

The Gautreaux program was one of the first major residential mobility programs in the United States, providing low-income black families from public housing with opportunities to relocate to more affluent white neighborhoods in the Chicago suburbs and in other city neighborhoods. This paper reviews the most recent research on the Gautreaux families, which uses long-term administrative data to examine the effects of placement neighborhoods on the economic and social outcomes of mothers and children. We find that both Gautreaux mothers and their now-grown children were remarkably successful at maintaining the affluence and safety of their placement neighborhoods. As to the long-run economic independence of the mothers themselves, however, the new research fails to confirm the suburban advantages found in past Gautreaux research, although it does show that these outcomes were worst in the most racially segregated placement neighborhoods. With regard to the criminal records of Gautreaux children, it is found that suburban placement helped boys but not girls. Based on these results, we review possible new directions for successful mobility programs.

The Notable and the Null: Using Mixed Methods to Understand the Diverse Impacts of Residential Mobility Programs

This chapter provides a unique contribution to the neighbourhood effects literature by demonstrating that data from in-depth interviews is capable of revealing some of the mechanisms behind unexpected quantitative findings. Such a mixed methods approach is regarded a major step forward in neighbourhood effects research. The chapter describes and attempts to explain unexpected findings from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) program (mental health improvements which were not originally anticipated); a weak ‘treatment’ effect for many families (initial and subsequent moves to segregated, economically declining areas instead of higher opportunity neighbourhoods); “null” findings where large effects on individual outcomes were expected instead (MTO was primarily designed to enhance the employment prospects of adults and to improve the educational outcomes of children, but no effects on employment and education were found); and a set of conflicting findings (moves to low poverty neighbourhoods were found to be beneficial to girls, but harmful for boys). The use of mixed methods has shown how the potential of MTO-based policy approaches is limited by structural barriers, and the dynamics of poor families’ beliefs, backgrounds and constraints.

Closing and Opening Schools: The Association between Neighborhood Characteristics and the Location of New Educational Opportunities in a Large Urban District

ABSTRACT: New charter schools can potentially provide disenfranchised students with enhanced academic opportunities while simultaneously serving as neighborhood anchors that reinforce neighborhood socioeconomic growth. However, for both of these arguments to be true, charter schools would have to replace low-performing public schools in currently disadvantaged, but revitalizing, neighborhoods. Using data from the Chicago Public Schools, the Common Core, and the Census, we examine the neighborhood and school-level factors that account for where elementary schools closed and opened in Chicago during the late 1990s and 2000s. We find that schools in disadvantaged neighborhoods were more likely to close, but only because these were also underperforming and under-enrolled schools. After controlling for educational demand, new schools were more likely to open in neighborhoods that showed signs of socioeconomic revitalization and declining proportions of white residents.

The Effects of Gentrification on Neighborhood Public Schools

Gentrification is generally associated with improvements in neighborhood amenities, but we know little about whether the improvements extend to public schools. Using administrative data (from spring 1993 to spring 2004) from the third largest school district in the United States, we examine the relationships between gentrification and school–level student math and reading achievement, and whether changes in the composition of the student body account for any changes in achievement. After testing several alternative specifications of gentrification, we find that, in Chicago, gentrification has little effect on neighborhood public schools. Neighborhood public schools experience essentially no aggregate academic benefit from the socioeconomic changes occurring around them. Furthermore, they may even experience marginal harm, as the neighborhood skews toward higher income residents. For the individual student, starting first grade in a school located in a gentrifying neighborhood has no association with the relative growth rate of their test scores over their elementary school years. Los Efectos de la Gentrificación en Escuelas Públicas Locales (Micere Keels, Julia Burdick–Will y Sara Keene) Resumen La gentrificación está generalmente asociada a mejoras en los servicios locales. Sin embargo, sabemos poco sobre si estas mejoras se extienden a las escuelas públicas. Usando información administrativa (desde el verano del 1993 a la primavera del 2004) del tercer distrito escolar más grande los EE.UU. examinamos la relación entre gentrificación y rendimiento a nivel escuela en matemáticas y lectura, y si los cambios en la composición del alumnado tienen efectos en dicho rendimiento escolar. Luego de probar varias alternativas, encontramos que, en Chicago, la gentrificación tiene poco efecto en las escuelas públicas locales. Las escuelas públicas locales no experimentan en general algún beneficio académico agregado de los cambios socioeconómicos que ocurren alrededor de ellas. Es más, estas incluso pueden experimentar un daño marginal en la medida que el espacio local es colmado de residentes de mayores ingresos. Para el estudiante, empezar el primer grado en una escuela ubicada en un barrio en gentrificación no guarda alguna relación con la mejora en sus pruebas escolares a lo largo de sus años de educación primaria.

Getting Them Enrolled Is Only Half the Battle: College Success as a Function of Race or Ethnicity, Gender, and Class

This study examines the gender and racial or ethnic gaps in college grades and graduation of a 1999 freshman cohort of students attending 24 selective predominantly White institutions (PWIs) and the factors that account for observed gaps. The study is guided by the question of whether gender, race or ethnicity, and socioeconomic status combine to affect college outcomes or whether they interact so that outcomes are more positive or adverse for one group than another. Gender gaps were observed for Black and Latino students. For Black students, the gender gap in degree attainment widened once sociodemographic factors were considered. In contrast, the gender gap for Latino students narrowed and became insignificant when sociodemographics were controlled. Additional within-group interactions were also evident. For example, the 6-year college graduation rates were higher for Black females than for males whose mothers did not have college degrees, but no gender gap existed when the mother had a college degree. These results show that among this sample of academically motivated students, the significance of gender depends on race and socioeconomic status. This suggests that improving minority success, especially for Black men at PWIs, requires extending the analysis beyond prior academic preparation to creating more supportive college environments.

The Importance of Scaffolding the Transition Unpacking the Null Effects of Relocating Poor Children Into Nonpoor Neighborhoods

I examine several potential explanations for recent evidence showing a lack of improvement in the academic achievement of children participating in several poverty reduction residential mobility programs. Detailed interviews and field notes about the relocation and school experiences of 80 children in the Gautreaux II residential mobility program are used. I find that for low-income children living in large central cities, residence in low-poverty neighborhoods has little effect on the opportunity to attend high-achieving schools. For those who relocated to suburban cities, neighborhood and school transition and adjustment difficulties create barriers that must be overcome for children to reap the educational benefits of attending high-achieving, highly resourced schools.

The Psychological and Academic Costs of School-Based Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions.

Research examining links between racial-ethnic microaggressions and educational and psychological outcomes can be improved with the development of brief and reliable measurement tools. Our brief School-Based Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions Scale addresses this gap. First, we examined the prevalence of school-based microaggressions among an analytic sample of 462 Black and Latinx students attending five historically White universities in the Midwest. Then, we examined the association between school-based microaggressions and depressive symptoms and academic achievement. An exploratory principal components analysis of Wave 1 data and a confirmatory factor analysis of Wave 3 data validated a three-factor model: (a) Academic Inferiority, (b) Expectations of Aggression, and (c) Stereotypical Misrepresentations. Students’ exposure to microaggressions and its effects were conditional on individual and school characteristics.

Choosing Single Motherhood

Scholar Micere Keels explores the rise of college-educated women of color having children outside of marriage.

Political activism and mental health among black and Latinx college students

Objectives: The current study investigates the utility of political activism as a protective factor against experiences of racial/ethnic (R/E) discrimination that negatively affect stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms among Black and Latinx college freshmen at predominately White institutions. Method: Data come from the Minority College Cohort Study, a longitudinal investigation of Black and Latinx college students (N = 504; 44% Black). We conducted multiple regression analyses for each mental health indicator and tested for interaction effects. Results: For Black and Latinx students, the relationship between R/E microaggressions and end of freshman year stress varied by political activism. For Black students, the relationship between R/E microaggressions and end of the year anxiety varied by political activism. There was a significant interaction effect for depressive symptoms among Latinx students. Conclusions: Political activism serves as a protective factor to mitigate the negative effect of R/E discrimination on stress and depressive symptoms for Latinx students. For Black students, higher levels of political activism may exacerbate experiences of R/E microaggressions and relate to more stress and anxiety compared with Black students who are less politically involved. Findings point to the need for a deeper understanding of phenomenological variation in experiences of microaggressions among R/E minorities and how students leverage political activism as an adaptive coping strategy to mitigate race-related stress during college.