Ethnic Residential Segregation and Educational Inequality in Metropolitan Areas

Abstract

Residential segregation by race and ethnicity in the United States has persisted at high levels despite half a century of fair housing legislation, creating school attendance zones that translate residential segregation into school-level racial segregation with profound consequences for educational equity. This paper examines the mechanisms through which residential segregation generates educational inequality: the local property tax funding model that links school resource levels to neighborhood wealth, the concentration of experienced teachers in higher-income and predominantly White schools, and the peer effects and social capital differences across racially segregated schools. Drawing on Massey and Denton’s (1993) foundational analysis of residential segregation and contemporary segregation sociology, we analyze how historical residential segregation maintains self-reinforcing educational disadvantage and evaluate the sociological evidence on desegregation, voluntary integration, and magnet school programs.