Switching Social Contexts: The Effects of Housing Mobility and School Choice … · 2016. 4....

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Switching Social Contexts:The Effects of HousingMobility and School ChoicePrograms on Youth OutcomesStefanie DeLuca and Elizabeth DaytonDepartment of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218;email: [email protected]

Annu. Rev. Sociol. 2009. 35:457–91

First published online as a Review in Advance onApril 16, 2009

The Annual Review of Sociology is online atsoc.annualreviews.org

This article’s doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-070308-120032

Copyright c© 2009 by Annual Reviews.All rights reserved

0360-0572/09/0811-0457$20.00

Key Words

neighborhoods, education, social policy, inequality

AbstractDespite years of research, methodological and practical obstacles makeit difficult to conclude whether policies aimed at improving schoolsand communities are effective for improving youth outcomes. To com-plement existing work, we assess research on the educational and so-cial outcomes for comparable youth who change school and neigh-borhood settings through unique housing policy and school voucherprograms. Research shows that housing programs have helped poorfamilies move to much safer, less disadvantaged, and less segregatedneighborhoods. Some housing programs have also provided early edu-cational benefits for young people who relocated to less poor and lesssegregated neighborhoods, but these gains were not maintained in thelong run. School voucher programs have helped disadvantaged youthattend higher-performing private schools in less segregated environ-ments with more middle-class peers. Although some voucher programshave shown small positive effects, the results of others are less certainowing to methodological weaknesses. Future research should directlyexamine families’ selection processes and be cautious with quantitativeresearch that uses naturally occurring variation to model the effects ofpotential social programs. Researchers should also recognize the fam-ily processes that interact with social policy to determine how youthdevelopment can be improved, alongside the structural and politicalprocesses that condition how programs work at a larger scale.

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Bronfenbrenner, if you want to understandsomething, try to change it.

—Urie Bronfenbrenner, quoting a mentor inAmerican Psychologist, 1977

INTRODUCTION

Neighborhoods and schools are important con-texts for the socialization and development ofyoung people as well as sites where the mech-anisms of opportunity and inequality operate.Both schools and communities have also be-come the focus of many recent policy discus-sions. Residential mobility, school mobility, andhousing policy garnered national attention af-ter the hurricane disaster in New Orleans, andHOPE VI demolitions (the largest federal ur-ban revitalization effort to date) are leadingto the relocation of poor families in cities allover the country. School accountability, testscore gaps between white and minority stu-dents, and choice programs are central to theNo Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, andfederal courts have recently considered whetherto mandate or overturn racial or socioeconomicintegration in housing and school settings.1

These contexts have been of central interestto social scientists, and multiple Annual Reviewshave assessed literature on the effects of schoolsand neighborhoods on the lives of young peo-ple (Arum 2000, Hallinan 1988, Sampson et al.2002, Small & Newman 2001).

As noted in these reviews and elsewhere, de-spite years of research on the developmental ef-fects of social contexts, we do not know defini-tively how neighborhood and school changesor some combination of both could be used aseffective policy levers to improve youth well-being. This is due in large part to two relatedissues. First, despite relatively high levels ofresidential mobility in the United States, wesee little variation in the types of schools thatlow-income minority children attend and the

1Thompson v. Department of Housing and Urban Development(95–309) (Baltimore, MD); Parents Involved in CommunitySchools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (05–908); and Meredithv. Jefferson County Board (05–915).

neighborhoods they inhabit. Often, disadvan-taged families are trapped in poor neighbor-hoods, and their children are trapped in low-performing schools (Massey & Denton 1993,South & Crowder 1997, South & Deane 1993).Therefore, we do not often get the chance toobserve how a more advantaged environmentmight affect their life chances. Second, familieschoose neighborhoods and schools—they arenot randomly distributed across social settings.This endogeneity or selection problem plaguesattempts to recover causal estimates in researchusing observational designs to study environ-mental effects because the characteristics anddynamics of families that lead them to choosesocial settings (albeit among a set of constrainedalternatives) may also affect their children’s out-comes (Manski 1995, Moffitt 2004, Winship &Morgan 1999).

Fortunately, there have been some uniqueopportunities to study what happens whenchildren experience moderate to radicalchanges in their schooling or neighborhoodenvironments, by virtue of external social andpolitical forces. For example, governmentor privately funded interventions such asschool choice vouchers and housing mobilityprograms attempt to redistribute opportu-nity by allowing individuals the chance tochange contexts. Other research opportuni-ties come from historical efforts to satisfycourt-mandated remedies, such as school andhousing desegregation programs, which mayallow for new opportunities through systemicchange and individual mobility. Still othersare a combination of interventions and socialscience experiments, such as school choicevoucher lotteries and the federal Moving toOpportunity (MTO) housing experiment.These programs and accompanying evalua-tion research vary in design, methodologicalrigor, “treatments,” and policy relevance. Tocomplement existing work, we assess researchspecifically focusing on outcomes for youthwho have changed school and neighborhoodsettings through housing policy programsand under certain types of school voucherinitiatives. We do not address theories of how

458 DeLuca · Dayton

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neighborhoods and schools matter for child andadolescent development, as this has been doneextensively elsewhere (see Bowles & Gintis1976; Brooks-Gunn et al. 1997a,b; Dreeben1968; Hallinan et al. 2003; Sampson et al. 2002).

THE EFFECTS OFNEIGHBORHOODS ANDSCHOOLS ON YOUTHDEVELOPMENT

Over the past 40 years, social scientists havebeen interested in the effects of social con-texts and how they help explain unequal lifeoutcomes. Analyses of school and neighbor-hood effects have become increasingly pop-ular among researchers, in part because em-pirical demonstrations that link social contextsto educational and life course attainment sig-nify the possibility for policy to intervene inthese contexts. Understanding the significanceof social environments has an inherent ap-peal relative to individual-level explanations forinequality (such as cultural dispositions andintelligence), and efforts to examine the impor-tance of individual versus environmental fac-tors have inspired a great deal of scientific andpolitical debate [for examples, refer to the de-bate around Herrnstein & Murray’s The BellCurve (1994) in Fischer et al. (1996) and Vol-ume 24 (1995) of Contemporary Sociology; seealso reviews of the research challenges andpolitics surrounding the structure and culturedebate as it pertains to the study of the un-derclass in Jencks 1993, Marks 1991, Small &Newman 2001]. We do not repeat the detailsfrom this vast literature, but summarize broadconclusions.

Inspired by the work of Wilson (1987) andguided by theories such as social capital and rel-ative deprivation, numerous researchers havedocumented that neighborhood-level charac-teristics, such as poverty rate, often predictchild and youth outcomes even after statisticallycontrolling for family socioeconomic status(SES) or child academic performance. The so-cial and structural dimensions of disadvantagedneighborhoods, including racial segregation,

poverty, unemployment, and violence, pre-dict youth outcomes such as high schooldropout (Aaronson 1998, Crane 1991, Crowder& South 2003), teenage childbearing (Crane1991, Ensminger et al. 1996), sexual activ-ity (Browning et al. 2004), behavioral prob-lems (Brooks-Gunn et al. 1993, Elliott et al.1996), and drug use (Case & Katz 1991).Poor neighborhoods also appear to dimin-ish educational attainment and other adoles-cent outcomes in part through lower levelsof positive adult socialization and collectiveefficacy (Ainsworth 2002, Card & Rothstein2007, Connell & Halpern-Fisher 1997, Garner& Raudenbush 1991, Sampson et al. 2008).Neighborhoods can also factor into youth ex-pectations about work, drug use, and col-lege attendance (Lillard 1993, MacLeod 1987,Sullivan 1989). Furthermore, recent researchhas begun to link disadvantaged neighbor-hoods with diminished health outcomes (cf.Acevedo-Garcia et al. 2003, Aneshensel &Sucoff 1996).

Despite extensive evidence linking neigh-borhoods and youth development, most re-search still finds that family background mat-ters more than neighborhoods (Brooks-Gunnet al. 1997a,b; Sampson et al. 2002). However,neighborhoods can affect family resources be-cause residential location affects the numberand types of jobs available for parents (Holzer1991, Ihlanfeldt & Sjoquist 1998, McLafferty& Preston 1992). Recent ethnographic workhas also suggested that neighborhoods mightaffect the outcomes of young people by in-fluencing parenting styles, child monitoringstrategies, and the social and institutional re-sources accessible to parents in the neighbor-hood (Furstenberg et al. 1999, Jarrett 1997).

Research on the influence of schooling en-vironments has also had a long career, startingwith the theories of Durkheim and Parsons andgaining empirical momentum with Coleman’sseminal report in 1966 and the early statusattainment research (Blau & Duncan 1967,Coleman et al. 1966). In his controversial re-port, Coleman found not only that fundingdifferentials between black and white schools

www.annualreviews.org • Housing and School Voucher Programs 459

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were smaller than expected, but also thatthey did not seem to matter for explainingachievement. Rather, he found that the edu-cational aspirations and social background ofmiddle-class peers were more important forpredicting achievement than was school fund-ing. Coleman took these results to mean thatefforts to integrate students by race and SESwould be successful (Coleman later changed hismind, finding that desegregation policies withindistricts often led to an increase in between-district segregation and by and large did notlead to economic integration; Coleman et al.1975). Early developments in social stratifica-tion research (e.g., Blau & Duncan 1967, Sewell& Hauser 1975) showed that the relationshipbetween son’s and father’s occupational attain-ment was largely mediated by schooling. Jenckset al. (1972, 1979) and Bowles & Gintis (1976)presented critical reanalyses and concluded thatalthough education had increasingly offset theeffect of family background, these effects werenot as large as previous work had shown, andthese models ignored the structural barriers toan equal access education in the United States.(A more recent and growing body of work hasalso considered how schooling contributes tothe development of noncognitive skills, such asmotivation or sociability; cf. Farkas 2003.)

Other common approaches to studyingschool effects have compared public and pri-vate school students’ academic achievement andfound that youth attending Catholic schools—especially black and low-income youth—hadhigher achievement scores (Bryk et al. 1993,Coleman & Hoffer 1987). More recently,others have employed sophisticated methodsto determine whether private and Catholicschools significantly improve student academicachievement after accounting for selection bias(Morgan 2001, Neal 1997). Although manystudies conclude that school quality has smalleffects on student learning when compared withfamily resources, researchers have continued toincorporate a variety of data sources and meth-ods into the debate over the effects of school andpeer characteristics, such as student racial andsocioeconomic characteristics, teacher quality,

and funding and curriculum (Burtless 1996,Card & Krueger 1992, Downey et al. 2004,Ferguson & Ladd 1996, Hanushek & Rivkin2006, Mayer & Peterson 1999). A number ofresearchers have concluded that teacher qual-ity and classroom size contribute significantlyto student achievement (Clotfelter et al. 2007,Jencks & Phillips 1998, Nye et al. 1999, Rivkinet al. 2005; however, see Jacob et al. 2008 forestimates that question the longevity of teachereffects).

CHALLENGES OF RESEARCHASSESSING NEIGHBORHOODAND SCHOOL EFFECTS

Despite widespread and growing interest inneighborhood and school processes, some re-searchers have been skeptical about our abilityto recover the causal effects of these contextswith common methodological approaches andmeasures (see Hanushek 1997, Mayer & Jencks1989, Moffitt 2004). Two related (but not ex-haustive) limitations make it difficult to knowwhether neighborhoods and schools indepen-dently affect the outcomes of young people:Families do not generally make large changesin the quality of their social contexts, and fam-ilies choose these contexts. Although familiesoften move, and as a result children changeschools, we see what Sampson (2008) calls “pro-found structural constraint” and Oakes (2004)calls “structural confounding.” As a result ofhousing discrimination, low levels of infor-mation, transportation limitations, and fear ofunfamiliar areas, poor families remain concen-trated in violent, disadvantaged neighborhoods,and their children are trapped in low-qualityschools (Charles 2003, Henig 1995, Sampson& Sharkey 2008, South & Crowder 1997).2

2Because of this stability in environment across social classes,some research suggests that “window” estimates are just asgood as multiple measures of social context in childhood (cf.Jackson & Mare 2007, Kunz et al. 2003). However, otherwork debates the extent to which point-in-time estimates areaccurate reflections of the environments children experienceover time (cf. Gramlich et al. 1992, Wolfe et al. 1996).


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In particular, black families are less likelyto convert human capital into desirableneighborhood amenities such as low crime andother resources (Alba et al. 1994; Logan &Alba 1991, 1993; Massey & Denton 1987). Thisleads to the common finding that poor blackfamilies move into white areas less often andexit white areas more often than white families(Gramlich et al. 1992, Massey et al. 1994, South& Crowder 1997). Blacks also have a high rateof moving into poor neighborhoods even afterthey have been in a low-poverty neighborhood,suggesting that blacks’ tenure in low-povertyareas is precarious (South et al. 2005). Schoolsector research also reports low levels of trans-fer between public schools and Catholic or pri-vate schools (Bryk et al. 1993) and that schooltransfers among minority families do not appre-ciably improve school quality (Hanushek et al.2004). In other words, in the natural course ofevents we do not observe poor families living inwealthy communities, and we do not often seetheir children attending schools with rigorousacademic courses. With observational data, weare often confined to modeling the amount ofvariation in social or academic outcomes thatcan be explained by contextual and family fac-tors in place, given current conditions. There-fore, we cannot easily determine what mighthappen if families and children were to makelarge changes in these environments, either in-dividually or en masse.

Second, families choose neighborhoods andschools. This makes it hard to know whetherneighborhoods themselves matter more thanparental resources or children’s traits. Whatleads families to pick a certain neighborhoodor a school setting is probably also related toother aspects of the family that affect child de-velopment (Mayer & Jencks 1989). Volatility infamily structure or parental income partly de-termines neighborhood options and may alsoreflect underlying instability in family dynam-ics, routines, and the psychological resourcesof parents. Such family instabilities also havedirect effects on young people such as howthey perform in school, their mental health,and whether they engage in risky behaviors

(cf. Fomby & Cherlin 2007, Wu 1996). Simi-larly, in the sociology of education literature, itis commonly found that more educated parentssend their children to private schools and alsotake an active role in requesting their teachersand negotiating the courses they take (Cole-man et al. 1982; Lareau 1989, 2003; Useem1992). These issues are commonly referred toas the endogeneity or the self-selection prob-lem in social science research, and they plagueour attempts to recover causal estimates of en-vironmental effects (see Duncan & Magnuson2003, Winship & Morgan 1999).

Generally, the research designs of studiesattempting to estimate neighborhood andschool effects are limited by the use of statis-tical controls and observational data.3 Typicalapproaches involve using nationally repre-sentative panel data, capitalizing on naturallyoccurring variation in school and neighborhoodquality, and modeling the association betweenvariation in neighborhood or school measures(such as census tract racial composition orschool test score performance) and individualyouth outcomes (such as high school dropout).Extensive controls are usually introduced toadjust for selection into schools and neighbor-hoods (to substitute for the selection equation).From these models, regression coefficients ofcontext effects are estimated, and then extrap-olated, so that one hypothetically compareswhat would happen to children from familiesof equivalent SES if one family relocated to acommunity that was one or two standard devi-ations above the mean in terms of affluence orschool test scores, and the other family moved

3There have been many recent exceptions and sophisticatedattempts to advance our use of observational data to overcomethe limitations of nonexperimental designs. See Harding(2003) for an example of propensity score matching to es-timate neighborhood effects, Foster & McLanahan (1996)and Card & Rothstein (2007) for demonstrations of the in-strumental variables approach, Sampson et al. (2008) for theuse of inverse probability of treatment weighting for esti-mating time varying neighborhood effects, Jacob (2004) forthe use of a natural experiment (HOPE VI), and Wheaton &Clarke (2003) who use cross-nested random effects models toestimate the impact of neighborhoods at different points intime as well as selection factors on child and youth behaviors.


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to a community that was two standard devia-tions below the mean on these measures. Whilereasonable, this approach is limited not onlybecause the threat of unobserved characteristicsinevitably remains, but also because poor chil-dren rarely live in wealthy communities andchildren from affluent families rarely reside indisadvantaged neighborhoods—the data do notexist. In other words, there are no exchangeablefamilies in the data, and off-support inferencesare made; the social structural confounding,or “ecological differentiation” (Sampson 2008)of society makes it so that we do not oftenobserve such combinations of individual andcommunity SES (Oakes 2004).

Our motivation for writing this review stemsin part from a concern about the application ofresearch that uses relatively weak observationaldesigns to inform questions of significant so-cial policy importance. We do not claim thatobservational data from national panel stud-ies tell us little; in fact, quite the contrary. Itis through such research that we discover thestructural correlates of inequality, how socialsystems function, the predictive power of so-cial context, and how the relationships betweensocial contexts and life outcomes might be me-diated by family or peer processes. However,research that examines naturally occurring vari-ation in social contexts and uses this variationto explain how outcomes differ cannot ascer-tain what would happen if we implemented thesocial policies and programs that some of thesestudies advocate in their conclusions. There-fore, to understand whether improving neigh-borhood or school contexts could have benefi-cial effects on young people, we need to observesimilar youth who experience very differentkinds of social environments, under conditions

Table 1 Programs and policies that allow for switching social contexts

Neighborhood change School changeAssisted housing voucher programs Desegregation and busing effortsHousing desegregation remedies Charter and magnet schoolsSection 8 voucher program School choice vouchersHOPE VI program No Child Left Behind choice provisions

in which self-selection is a lesser threat to theresults. We consider such examples below.

SWITCHING SOCIAL CONTEXTS

Over the past 15 years, there have beenmany opportunities to study what happenswhen children experience moderate to radicalchanges in their schooling or neighborhoodenvironments. These opportunities range con-siderably from government interventions andcourt-mandated remedies to social science ex-periments. These programs and accompanyingresearch vary in design, but many of them pro-vide an example of what happens when socialenvironments change because of external orexogenous forces. In other words, families andchildren change community or school (or both)contexts not necessarily because of their ownindividual attributes, but because a policy orinstitutional development changed their socialopportunity structure (i.e., there is an instru-ment that predicts exposure to a new school orcommunity that is unrelated to family and childcharacteristics) (cf. Angrist et al. 1996). Theliterature in education, psychology, sociology,public policy, and economics we review herefalls into two broad categories: neighborhoodchange and school change (see Table 1).4

For this review, we focus on findings froma selection of these efforts—mainly assistedhousing mobility programs and school choicevouchers. In large part, our decision to focus onthe results of these programs rests on five ele-ments: design, degree of environmental change,availability of individual-level analyses, imple-mentation of field trials, and replications ormultiteam evaluations (see Tables 2 and 3 forbrief descriptions). First, the research designsused to evaluate the effects of these mobility and

4We do not consider within-school changes, such as wholeschool reform, state-level accountability changes, restructur-ing, or curricular innovation (see Schneider & Keesler 2007for a review). Similarly, we do not consider in-place commu-nity redevelopment or revitalization efforts, such as empow-erment zones, asset building, or mixed-income initiatives (seeGrogan & Proscio 2001, Joseph 2006, Pattillo 2007, Taub1994).


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Tab

le2

Ele

men

tsof

hous

ing

and

scho

olch

oice

prog

ram

s

Pro

gram

Inte

nded

Tre

atm

ent

Pro

gram

Size

Com

mun

ity

Cha

nge?

Scho

olC

hang

e?Si

tes

Pop

ulat

ion

Gau

trea

uxH

ousi

ngvo

uche

rus

edin

subu

rban

com

mun

ities

not

mor

eth

an30

%A

fric

anA

mer

ican

orre

vita

lizin

gci

tyne

ighb

orho

ods

7000

fam

ilies

Yes

Yes,

mos

tsub

urba

nm

over

sal

soch

ange

dsc

hool

s

Chi

cago

Afr

ican

Am

eric

anpu

blic

hous

ing

resi

dent

sor

wai

t-lis

ted

fam

ilies

MT

OFo

rex

peri

men

talf

amili

es,

hous

ing

vouc

her

used

ince

nsus

trac

tsno

tmor

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%po

or

4600

fam

ilies

(170

0in

expe

rim

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oup)

Yes

Som

etim

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wpr

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tion

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nch

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Chi

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Yes

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school choice programs, while not without lim-itations, are more rigorous and allow for morevalid causal inferences. They are based on ran-domized lotteries, random assignment, positionon a wait-list, or quasi-random selection proce-dures.5 Second, by design, these programs in-duced larger context changes than some of theothers. For example, built into the Gautreauxhousing program was the requirement that fam-ilies relocate to neighborhoods that were lessthan 30% African American, and housing unitsin such neighborhoods were found for the fam-ilies by housing counselors; these changes aremuch larger than those seen under the regularSection 8 voucher program in which families of-ten move to other poor or segregated commu-nities. Similarly, school voucher programs pro-vide subsidies for children to change schools,usually transferring from low-performing pub-lic schools to private schools; such school sectorchanges are not common among less affluentstudents (Bryk et al. 1993).

Third, these studies examine changes inindividual-level outcomes, such as test scores,rather than system-level changes. In otherwords, we focus on studies that explore whetherswitching from a poor performing public schoolto a private school improved math and read-ing test scores, rather than assessing whetherschool choice vouchers induce accountabilityand efficiency among public schools in the samesystem (or whether housing vouchers reduceracial segregation on the metropolitan level).Fourth, the studies we selected provided re-sults from programs that were fielded, not sim-ulation models. Last, we tried to include stud-ies with multiple independent research teams(such as the MTO research program) or repli-cations by different researchers with access tothe same data (as in the Milwaukee, Cleveland,

5The power of randomization is that it equates individualson the expectation of all pretreatment characteristics and isan independent determinant of their selection into a treat-ment. This allows for the estimation of causal effects because,theoretically, any differences on post-test observations of theoutcome are attributable to the treatment, not to selectionfactors.

and New York voucher programs). We do notmean to suggest that the other kinds of hous-ing and school programs cannot provide us withinsights about the relationships between socialenvironments and youth development or havenot provided for benefits to individual childrenand adolescents. However, at present, the con-sensus is that research evaluating some of theseother efforts (such as magnet schools, cf. Blank1990) is limited in its capacity to produce resultsthat support causal inference. However, we dodescribe some of these research developmentsand examples below, given their past and futuresignificance.

For example, the Housing Choice Voucherprogram (formerly the Section 8 program) hasprovided for significant voluntary relocationamong the urban poor, although the research ismixed in terms of whether vouchers could leadto educational or social benefits for young peo-ple (Schwartz 2006). Although families usinghousing vouchers relocate to communities thatare less poor and segregated than families livingin housing projects, many end up moving to ar-eas that are still quite impoverished and raciallysegregated (Basolo & Nguyen 2006, Cronin &Rasmussen 1981, Newman & Schnare 1997,Turner 1998). However, several more recentstudies have shown that in some cities manyvoucher holders make large improvements inhousing quality and community safety (Feins &Patterson 2005, Varady & Walker 2003).

Another major housing program, HOPEVI, has provided funding for the demolition,planning, and redevelopment of public housingcommunities. On the one hand, some researchsuggests that the involuntary relocation in-volved in HOPE VI severs social ties and makesit difficult for families to establish new socialnetworks in their new communities (Clampet-Lundquist 2004, 2007) and that large numbersof HOPE VI relocatees end up in other publichousing projects or relocate to other poor,segregated communities (Venkatesh 2002).As a result, their children do not experienceimprovements in school quality relative totheir peers who remain in the housing projects( Jacob 2004). On the other hand, recent


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research from a multicity study shows that thefamilies who use vouchers to relocate end up inneighborhoods that are significantly safer, andtheir children exhibit fewer problems actingout at home or at school than the childrenwho relocated to other public housing projects(Gallagher & Bajaj 2007, Popkin & Cove 2007).Relocation appears to be a mixed blessing forHOPE VI families, but research on child out-comes is still relatively rare, and it is too early totell whether families and young people mightbenefit from moving back to the mixed-incomedevelopments that have replaced the high-riseprojects.

Since Brown v. Board of Education, there havealso been many different efforts to providehigher-quality and less segregated schooling forminority children. Decades of reviews on theeffects of desegregation and busing have pro-duced mixed results, in large part because ofthe methodological weaknesses of the studies(Bradley & Bradley 1977). However, at presentmost researchers conclude that black studentachievement appears to be enhanced (or at leastunaffected) in integrated environments, espe-cially in earlier grades and especially in studiesusing longitudinal data or experimental designs[Cook (1984a,b), Crain & Mahard (1983), St.John (1975); however, Armor (2002) reviewedexperimental and quasi-experimental studiesof desegregation and concluded that raciallybalanced schools do not seem to improveachievement gaps]. Charter schools provide thepromise of enhanced educational environmentsbecause, while publicly funded and still subjectto accountability, they have more freedom inhiring practices and curriculum developmentthan traditional public schools (Renzulli 2005).Unfortunately, although most states have char-ter school authorization laws, knowledge of stu-dent achievement is still in its early stages. Intheir first years of operation, charter schools’students’ test scores tend to decline, but theselosses are recovered after a few years (Bookeret al. 2007, Loveless 2003). To date, the researchon the benefits of charter schools for minoritychildren is mixed, with some very recent stud-ies showing gains in Milwaukee (Witte et al.

2007) and either widening achievement gaps ormixed effects in other states (Bifulco & Ladd2007, Gill et al. 2001, Zimmer & Buddin 2006).There are also questions of whether charterschools can provide large changes in social en-vironments, as many are marked by particu-larly high levels of segregation (Gajendragadkar2005, Rickles et al. 2005). Magnet schoolsare public schools that encourage integrationthrough enriched environments such as special-ized math and science programs and additionalresources aimed at attracting more advantagedstudents (Lauen 2007a). Using nationally rep-resentative data, Gamoran (1996) suggestedthat magnet schools increase reading scores af-ter controls for selection, and another studyshowed mixed evidence of long-term gains,such as high school graduation (Crain & Thaler1999). Unfortunately, we could not find moreextensive research that examined the academicoutcomes of magnet school students.6

Although not an official school voucher pro-gram, the federal NCLB Act is worth men-tioning. The legislation includes a provisionthat forces failing schools to provide choiceoptions: Underperforming schools receivingTitle I funds that do not make adequate yearlyprogress (AYP) for two years in a row must of-fer students the chance to attend another publicschool in the same district or one nearby thatis making AYP. However, it is unclear what theeffects of this kind of choice will be becausethe amount of choice actually exercised underNCLB has been minimal: Only about 1% ofthe 3.3 million students eligible for a schoolchange in 2003–2004 transferred (Hess & Finn2006, Lauen 2007b). In large part, this lack oftake-up is due to poor information, the absenceof real alternative local schools, and practicalissues like transportation (Hess & Finn 2006,

6Magnet schools may also fail to provide decreased levels ofsegregation. This is in part fueled by application processesthat disadvantage poorer and minority children (Archbald2004) and by white parents avoiding predominantly black lo-cal schools (Saporito & Lareau 1999). However, an analysis ofpublic elementary schools in five California metropolitan ar-eas found that magnet schools, on average, provided studentswith more integrated environments (Rickles et al. 2005).


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West & Peterson 2003). With limited intradis-trict options and low participation rates to date,it is not clear the extent to which NCLB willprovide research opportunities to assess the ef-fects of changing educational contexts for pub-lic school students.

SWITCHING NEIGHBORHOODS:EXAMINING THE EVIDENCEFROM ASSISTED HOUSINGVOUCHER PROGRAMS

Previous research using observational data haslinked the structural and social dimensions ofneighborhoods to the educational and behav-ioral outcomes of young people. However, poorand minority youth remain isolated from manyof the resources present in middle-class com-munities and schools. Therefore, it makes sensethat neighborhood relocation programs thathelp low-income families move to safer, moreopportunity-rich communities could have pro-found effects on their children. In part, sucha move can lead to improvements in neighbor-hood and housing quality, creating the possibil-ity of safer public spaces for playing, more jobsfor parents, access to other employed adults,and new friendships with academically engagedpeers (Mayer & Jencks 1989). If the housingrelocation allows moves across school districtboundaries, there is also the possibility thatchildren will attend higher-quality schools withskilled teachers and enrichment programs. Be-low we assess how housing relocations affectneighborhood quality and life outcomes forchildren and parents, reviewing research fromfour housing mobility programs that took placein six cities, from as early as 1976 and as late as2002.

The Gautreaux Program

The first major residential mobility program,the Gautreaux program, came as a result ofa 1976 Supreme Court ruling in a lawsuitfiled on behalf of public housing residentsagainst the Chicago Housing Authority andthe U.S. Department of Housing and Urban

Development (HUD) (Polikoff 2006). The suitcharged these agencies with racially discrimina-tory practices in the administration of Chicago’slow-rent housing programs. Between 1976 and1990, the court remedy provided vouchers formore than 7000 families in the Chicago metroarea to move to nonsegregated communities.Suburbs with black populations of more than30% were excluded by the consent decree. Al-though the choice to participate in the pro-gram was voluntary, families did not choose thehousing units into which they relocated. Theywere assigned to apartments in new neighbor-hoods by housing counselors (who were work-ing with landlords) on the basis of their positionon a waiting list, similar to a random-draw lot-tery (Rubinowitz & Rosenbaum 2000). Par-ticipants could refuse an offer, but few didso because they were unlikely ever to get an-other. Although only about 20% of the eli-gible applicants moved through the program,self-selection does not appear to have affectedprogram take-up (Peterson & Williams 1995).Rather than opting out of the program, mostnonmovers were not offered a housing unit andthus not given the chance to participate. Hous-ing counselors were forbidden by the consentdecree from making offers selectively amongfamilies, and there is no evidence that theydid so.

The Gautreaux program included three se-lection criteria to harmonize the relationshipsbetween landlords and tenants. It tried to avoidovercrowding, late rent payments, and build-ing damage by excluding families with morethan four children, large debts, or unaccept-able housekeeping. Although they met thesecriteria, qualifying participants shared manycharacteristics of poor, single-parent, welfare-dependent families.7

7These criteria reduced the eligible pool by less than30%. S.J. Popkin (unpublished manuscript) found that theGautreaux participants and a sample of Aid to Familieswith Dependent Children (AFDC) recipients were similarin time spent on AFDC (seven years on average), althoughthe welfare group had more second-generation recipients.The groups were similar in terms of marital status (45%never married and 10% currently married), but differed by


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Although Gautreaux counselors worked toplace families in low-poverty, racially integratedneighborhoods according to the consent de-cree, at points it was difficult to find housingin neighborhoods that met these criteria. Inresponse, the program adjusted its definitionof qualifying destinations to include neighbor-hoods that were quite poor and segregated butwere judged to be improving. As a result, aboutone-fifth of the Gautreaux families was placedin high-poverty, highly segregated neighbor-hoods, almost all of which were within the citylimits of Chicago (and an average of seven milesaway) (Mendenhall et al. 2006). This variationmakes it possible to compare the fortunes ofthese families with the outcomes of the four-fifths of participating families placed in more af-fluent and less segregated neighborhoods, mostof which were in suburban communities (anaverage of 25 miles away).8

Early Gautreaux results showed that chil-dren who moved to the suburbs went to muchmore rigorous schools, took more college trackcourses, received higher grades, and were morelikely to attend college than their counter-parts who moved to other city neighborhoods(Kaufman & Rosenbaum 1992, Rubinowitz &Rosenbaum 2000). Almost 90% of the childrenwho moved to suburban communities wereattending schools that were performing at orabove national levels, in stark contrast to theiroriginal inner-city schools. Mothers reportedthat their children were getting needed assis-tance in the new schools and that they werebenefiting from the more challenging academiccourses in the suburban areas (Kaufman &

education and age: 39% of the Gautreaux women droppedout of high school compared with 50% of the AFDC sample,and Gautreaux participants were slightly older.8As a result of the program, participants’ preferences forplacement neighborhoods had relatively little to do withwhere they ended up moving, providing a degree of exoge-nous variability in neighborhood placement that undergirdsGautreaux research. At the same time, both Votruba & Kling(2004) and Mendenhall et al. (2006) document significantcorrelations between baseline family and neighborhood char-acteristics and suburban placements. Although these charac-teristics are controlled in the statistical analyses, there re-mains the possibility of selection bias.

Rosenbaum 1992). These results suggested thatneighborhood change could improve school-ing opportunities and educational outcomes,despite initial disruptions in social ties, familyroutine, or schooling adjustments. Suburbanmothers also benefited from higher levels ofpostmove employment (Popkin et al. 1993,Rubinowitz & Rosenbaum 2000).

To improve the design and data quality ofthe earlier work, recent research accounted formore preprogram characteristics and used ad-ministrative data to locate recent addresses fora random sample of 1500 Gautreaux movers,as well as track residential and economic out-comes for mothers and children. Gautreauxwas indeed successful in helping public-housingfamilies relocate to safer, more integratedneighborhoods (Keels et al. 2005). These fam-ilies came from very poor neighborhoods, withcensus tract poverty rates averaging 40–60%,or three to five times the national poverty rate.Through the program, they moved to neigh-borhoods that were 17% poor—less than halfthe original rate (the poverty rate for thosewho moved to the suburbs was even lower,at 5%). By the late 1990s, 15 to 20 years af-ter relocating, Gautreaux mothers continued tolive in neighborhoods with lower poverty ratesthan their original public housing communi-ties. Gautreaux also achieved striking successin moving low-income black families into moreracially integrated neighborhoods (DeLuca &Rosenbaum 2003). The origin communitieswere 83% black, whereas the communities inwhich the program placed families averaged28% black (most of the suburban moves were tocommunities that were more than 90% white).Some Gautreaux families later moved to neigh-borhoods that contained considerably moreblacks—48%, on average—or a fairly even bal-ance of blacks and individuals from other races(suburban movers were later living in areas thatwere about 36% black; DeLuca & Rosenbaum2003). Despite the increase, these levels wereless than half of what they had been in the ori-gin neighborhoods.

Parental economic outcomes, such as wel-fare receipt, employment, and earnings, were


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also influenced by the income and racial charac-teristics of placement neighborhoods. Womenwho moved to mostly black, low-SES neighbor-hoods received welfare 7% longer, on average,than women placed in any other neighbor-hoods; women placed with few (0–10%) ver-sus many (61–100%) black neighbors had em-ployment rates that were six percentage pointshigher and earned $2200 more annually thanwomen placed in more segregated and less af-fluent areas (Mendenhall et al. 2006).

Another striking finding is that there seemsto be a second generation of Gautreaux ef-fects. Research on the children of the Gautreauxfamilies has demonstrated that the neighbor-hoods where they resided in the late 1990s asadults were substantially more integrated thantheir overwhelmingly minority origin neigh-borhoods (Keels 2008a). With most Gautreauxchildren still too young for a reliable assess-ment of career successes, Keels (2008b) usedadministrative data on criminal justice systeminvolvement to examine arrests and convictionsfor the young adults. Males placed in suburbanlocations experienced significantly lower oddsof being arrested or convicted of a drug offensecompared with males placed within Chicago;specifically, there was a 42% drop in the oddsof being arrested and a 52% drop in the oddsof being convicted for a drug offense for sub-urban movers relative to city movers. Surpris-ingly, females placed into mostly white sub-urban neighborhoods had approximately threetimes the likelihood of being convicted of adrug, theft, or violent offense compared withfemales placed within Chicago. Although therehas been no long-term follow-up of the educa-tional achievement of Gautreaux children, re-search has shown that suburban mover childrenwere more likely to be referred for special edu-cation services, even after adjusting for previousreferral (DeLuca & Rosenbaum 2000).

In several qualitative studies (Rosenbaumet al. 2002, 2005), researchers explored socialprocesses through interviews with 150 moth-ers who described how these neighborhoodshelped improve their lives and the lives of theirchildren. After the moves, mothers described

a new sense of control over their lives andremarked that their new environments helpedthem to see that they had the ability to im-prove their circumstances. Specifically, womenreported feeling better about not having to putdown a public housing address on job applica-tions. Other women noted that they and theirchildren got to know more white people andwould feel less intimidated about interactingwith whites in the future. Similarly, mothers re-ported social responsiveness from their neigh-bors. Many said that they could count on neigh-bors’ help if their child misbehaved or seemedat risk of getting into trouble, if their child wassick and could not attend school, or if there wassome threat to their family or homes. Some re-ported a willingness to take jobs because theycould count on a neighbor to watch their childif they were late getting home from work.

Moving to Opportunity

The Gautreaux evidence suggested that the lifechances of low-income families and their chil-dren depended not just on who they were, butwhere they lived. Critics questioned the find-ings, however, raising doubts about whetherfamilies who moved to suburbs and those whomoved to other city neighborhoods were reallycomparable. Gautreaux was not a randomizedtrial: There was no control group of familieswho stayed in their original neighborhoods. Inpart to test the promise of Gautreaux, the MTOprogram, legislated and funded in the 1990s,was designed as a rigorous social experiment.Beginning in 1994, MTO gave public housingresidents in high-poverty neighborhoods in fivecities (New York, Boston, Baltimore, Chicago,and Los Angeles) the opportunity to apply fora chance to receive a housing voucher. Fami-lies were assigned at random to one of threegroups (see Orr et al. 2003). The experimentalgroup received a Section 8 voucher that wouldallow them to rent an apartment in the pri-vate market, but they could only lease in censustracts with 1990 poverty rates of less than 10%(unlike Gautreaux, there were no racial restric-tions on the destination neighborhoods). This


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group also received housing counseling to as-sist them in relocating. Another group receiveda Section 8 voucher with no geographical re-strictions. Finally, the control group receivedno new housing assistance but could continueto live in public housing or apply for other hous-ing assistance.

About 4600 families were part of the MTOprogram across all five cities, and more than1700 were randomly assigned to the group of-fered the low-poverty vouchers. A little overhalf of these families used the vouchers to suc-cessfully lease up in a low-poverty neighbor-hood. Nonprofit agencies provided the housingcounseling in partnership with public housingauthorities, who administered the vouchers. Al-though families were given housing counseling,they chose their own housing units within al-lowable census tracts. In most cities, counselorsprovided a series of workshops to help fami-lies manage their budgets, search for housing,and learn how to present themselves favorablyto potential landlords. In Baltimore, they alsoassisted the search process by running neigh-borhood tours so that the families could seecommunities and homes in the outlying coun-ties (Feins et al. 1997). Although counselorsdid try to help families with nonhousing issuesbefore the move (such as credit problems, em-ployment, and depression), they did not pro-vide assistance with transportation costs, jobsearches, or local school information after thefamily relocated.

As with Gautreaux, families who moved withMTO vouchers relocated to neighborhoodswith much lower poverty rates than their pub-lic housing neighborhoods: The new neighbor-hoods were 11% poor on average, comparedwith about 40% or more in the original com-munities (Feins & Shroder 2005). When theywere contacted after four to seven years, fami-lies who had moved with low-poverty voucherswere still in neighborhoods that were signifi-cantly less poor, but many moved from theirfirst MTO communities into more disadvan-taged ones. MTO set no race-based limits onplacement neighborhoods, and MTO familiesmoving in conjunction with the program both

began and ended up in neighborhoods withhigh minority concentrations (Feins & Shroder2005). Unsurprisingly, when families signed upfor MTO, more than three-quarters reportedthat the most important reason for wanting tomove was to escape inner-city gangs, drugs, andviolence; access to better quality housing camein as the second most important reason. Fourto seven years later, the experimental moversreported much higher levels of neighborhoodand housing quality than control group fami-lies. Fewer experimental movers were victim-ized, and they felt safer at night; they reportedgreater success getting police to respond to callsin their current neighborhoods, and they sawless drug-related loitering (Kling et al. 2004).

Researchers also found significant reduc-tions in MTO mothers’ psychological distress,on par with the benefits of best practices in an-tidepressant therapies (Kling et al. 2007), sug-gesting that safer environments could improveparents’ mental health, which plays an impor-tant role in children’s well-being (Mayer 1997).They also found significant reductions in obe-sity and increases in self-reported healthy eat-ing habits and exercise among the mothers whomoved. Mothers worried less about violenceand having to constantly monitor their chil-dren’s safety and seemed thus freer to pursueother activities (Kling et al. 2004). In termsof the effects of MTO on family socioeco-nomic outcomes, results were less overwhelm-ing. MTO mothers were no more likely to beemployed, earned no more, and received wel-fare no less often than mothers assigned to thecontrol group (Kling et al. 2007). In part, thiscould be explained by the fact that the controlgroup was more likely to be employed duringthe time as well, given the economic boom ofthe 1990s.

Early research on the direct effects of MTOon young people found that moving to lesspoor neighborhoods helped children attendhigher-performing schools and increased chil-dren’s test scores and school engagement, espe-cially in Baltimore (Ludwig et al. 2001b). TheBoston site demonstrated a one-third reduc-tion in delinquent behaviors for experimental


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boys, compared with controls (Katz et al. 2001),and early analyses for the Baltimore youthdemonstrated a reduction in the proportionof experimental and Section 8 boys who werearrested for violent crimes (Ludwig et al.2001a). However, by the time of the interimimpacts evaluation four to seven years later, re-sults became more complicated and genderedpatterns emerged. Relative to controls, youngwomen who relocated with the experimentalvouchers demonstrated large reductions in ar-rests for both violent and property crimes andsignificantly lower levels of depression and anx-iety, and they were also less likely to drop out ofschool, use drugs, drink, or smoke (Kling et al.2007). Unfortunately, young men in the low-poverty experimental group evidenced 20%more behavior problems and were 30% morelikely to be arrested than their control counter-parts (Kling et al. 2005).

Despite the early educational benefits, thefollow-up study showed virtually no gains inacademic performance or school engagementfor the children from the experimental group,and only small increases in school quality(Sanbonmatsu et al. 2006). For example, be-fore moving with the program, MTO childrenattended schools ranked at the fifteenth per-centile statewide; four to seven years after themove, they were attending schools that rankedat the twenty-fourth percentile. After the move,youth were attending schools with about 10%fewer minority peers and almost 13% fewer stu-dents eligible for the federal lunch program(Sanbonmatsu et al. 2006). In part, the lackof educational effects could be explained bythe fact that, by the time of the interim study,almost 70% of the MTO children were at-tending schools in the same district where theysigned up for the program (Orr et al. 2003).

Researchers wanted to understand the mixedresults of MTO, especially the differences inyouth outcomes by gender, so in 2003–2004they began to conduct in-depth interviews inthe five MTO cities. Some of the work inBoston, Los Angeles, and New York suggeststhat the young women experienced less anxi-ety in part because they no longer had to worry

about the sexual harassment and pressure for sexthey experienced in their city neighborhoods(Popkin et al. 2008). Clampet-Lundquist andcolleagues (2006) explored additional genderdifferences in Baltimore and found that MTOgirls and boys socialize in different ways: Boyswere more likely to hang out with their friendson the corner or on a neighborhood basket-ball court, and girls were more likely to visitwith friends from school and socialize insidetheir homes or go to a downtown mall. Boysmay have been at higher risk of delinquencybecause these routines do not fit in as well inlow-poverty neighborhoods, which may explainwhy they did not benefit from peers in their newneighborhoods as much as girls did (Clampet-Lundquist et al. 2006).

The interviews also suggested that socialand structural processes prevented children’saccess to higher-quality schools (DeLuca &Rosenblatt 2010). Despite receiving housingsubsidies, the neighborhoods where MTO fam-ilies moved and the rental housing market con-straints they faced precluded their access tothe higher-performing schools available in theadjacent counties. The conditions of life inpoverty also affected program participation—many families juggled severe challenges such asdrug addiction, suspicious landlords, diabetes,and depression. At times, these issues madeschooling a lower priority. Parents’ beliefs alsoaffected whether the MTO move led to schoolchanges: Some mothers did not want childrento change schools if it was going to be disruptiveor keep them from old friends, and other par-ents believed that if their children just workedhard, they could do well in any school (DeLuca& Rosenblatt 2010).

Yonkers’s and Baltimore’s Programs

Another innovative quasi-experimental pro-gram of research, the Yonkers Family and Com-munity Project, evaluated the outcomes forfamilies who moved to new housing constructedin middle-class white majority neighborhoodsthrough a 1985 desegregation court order inYonkers, New York (Fauth et al. 2004, 2005,


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2007). The courts found that the “discrimi-natory siting of public housing had created adual system of neighborhood schools resultingin the denial of equal educational opportunityfor children of color” (Briggs 1998, p. 192).The remedy was immediate school desegre-gation and the provision of 200 newly con-structed, subsidized housing units (in eighttownhome developments) in the mostly whitecommunities of Yonkers.

To get a chance to relocate to the new units,low-income minority families (in public hous-ing or on the wait-list) entered a lottery andwere randomly selected for the subsidy. Be-tween 1992 and 1994, 189 families moved intothe new units with moving assistance, and hous-ing counseling was provided for a month af-ter the move. Because the housing authorityrestricted access to the information about thefamilies who entered the lottery but did not win,the researchers constructed a control groupfrom two sources. First, they generated a sam-ple of nonmovers by asking participants to namefamilies they knew who did not move, and theyalso recruited public housing families who wereeligible for the lottery (about half of this groupactually did sign up for the lottery). From thesetwo sources, they generated a sample of about150 black and Latino families with children, andfollowed up with them two years later and againseven years after the program began.

The follow-up research showed that youthwhose families moved to the new units wereexposed to less poverty, substance use, and vi-olence, and their parents reported more satis-faction with their housing quality (Fauth et al.2004). However, because of school desegre-gation, school quality did not differ betweenthe mover and stayer control groups, as bothgroups attended schools that were more than70% poor and minority. Early results suggestedthat the children who were younger (ages 8–9)when their families moved were less delinquentthan the stayers, whereas the older adolescents(ages 16–18) exhibited more behavioral prob-lems (Fauth et al. 2005). The authors specu-lated that it could have been due to trouble

adjusting to the radical change in social context(going from mostly minority to mostly whitecommunities) or the disruption of the move it-self (Fauth et al. 2005). Seven-year follow-updata suggested that mover youth ages 15–18 hadlower educational engagement, more substanceuse, and more anxiety than the stayer group andthat in part the higher levels of anxiety and de-pressive symptoms were attributable to the lackof contact with neighbors in the new commu-nities (Fauth et al. 2007; cf. Briggs 1998).

Analyses of the effects of the moves on par-ent behaviors suggested that the mover parentswere less strict with their children, a result thatis consistent with the literature on how neigh-borhoods affect parenting (see Furstenberget al. 1999) but that in this case might have al-lowed the youth to act out. The results from theYonkers research do not provide strong supportfor the role of mobility programs in improvingyouth development, but the research does havelimitations that prevent definitive conclusions.There were no baseline measures recorded forthe children’s outcomes, the outcomes wereall self-reported, and the program itself wasmet with great political resistance that mighthave affected the extent to which residents whomoved became integrated into the communityenough for children to experience the bene-fits of the middle-class community (Fauth et al.2007). The researchers also note that it is hardto expect large benefits from the move to thenew communities in the absence of supportsand strong connections to middle-class neigh-bors (Fauth et al. 2007).

The most recent housing mobility pro-gram in place is the Thompson program inBaltimore. In 1995, with the assistance of theAmerican Civil Liberties Union, public hous-ing residents in Baltimore City filed suit againstthe public housing authority of Baltimore Cityand HUD, citing that both agencies failed todismantle the city’s racially segregated systemof public housing, which had been put in placeas early as the 1930s. In 1996, a partial con-sent decree was issued, as the first part of alarger anticipated remedy. As a result of this


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decree, the Thompson program currently pro-vides 2000 special housing vouchers to be givento plaintiff class members (former or currentpublic housing families) to create housing op-portunity in middle-class, mostly white areasof Baltimore City and the adjacent counties.Families are allowed to relocate only withincensus tracts that are less than 30% AfricanAmerican, are less than 10% poor, and havefewer than 5% of the residents receiving hous-ing subsidies. As of September 2008, about1200 families have moved to such neighbor-hoods with these targeted vouchers, and re-searchers are currently analyzing these earlymoves, which are only 1–5 years after initiallease up (DeLuca & Rosenblatt 2008a). Earlyevidence examining relocations for Thompsonmovers relative to several quasi-experimentalcomparison groups (including regular Section8 voucher holders and eligible nonmovers) sug-gests that the Thompson vouchers have ledto large reductions in neighborhood poverty,segregation, and crime and to increases in thequality of the schools children are eligible toattend because of their relocation (DeLuca &Rosenblatt 2008b). Research has yet to eval-uate whether the Thompson moves have af-fected individual-level youth outcomes. A finalremedy decision is also still pending (which hasthe potential to provide several thousand newvouchers), so it will be some time before weknow the full potential of the Thompson pro-gram to affect the lives of Baltimore’s poor-est families and children. (See Briggs 1997;Goetz 2002, 2003; Popkin et al. 2003; Turner1998 for additional reviews of housing mo-bility programs and details about programsin other cities such as Minneapolis, Denver,and Dallas.)

SWITCHING SCHOOLS:EXAMINING THE EVIDENCEFROM SCHOOL VOUCHERPROGRAMS

Researchers expected that improving residen-tial access through these housing programscould improve access to schooling opportunity,

given the linkage between geographic residenceand school zoning (Orfield & Eaton 1996,Rivkin 1994). However, the evidence abovepaints a mixed picture, as some of the programsdid not lead to large changes in school con-texts and educational outcomes. Previous re-search suggests that there has been a lack of con-sideration for school context in neighborhoodresearch, what Arum (2000) calls “the mostprobable source of institutional variation affect-ing educational achievement within neighbor-hoods” (p. 401). Therefore, it might not be sur-prising that we have not seen large consistentchanges in educational or even some behavioraloutcomes as a result of housing programs.

In this section, we assess the research onschool voucher programs, which by designlead to more direct changes in school con-text. Vouchers are distinct from other formsof school choice, such as charter or magnetschools, in that they provide the opportunityfor youth to attend private schools, often usingpublic funds. The political, legal, and social vi-sion for school vouchers is vast, ranging fromproviding individual student benefits of equity,opportunity, and diversity to providing a sourceof accountability and efficiency at the publicschool system level (Levin 1998). Voucher pro-grams are relatively rare, with only about 63,000recipients funded nationwide in 2000 (Howell2004). Still, in the decade following the estab-lishment of the first voucher program in 1990,dozens of programs emerged across the coun-try (Howell et al. 2002). More than a decade ofresearch has scrutinized the influence of vouch-ers, and we examine some of the studies with thestrongest designs below, using data from pro-grams in five cities and voucher programs fromthe early 1990s through to the present.9

9We focused our attention on school voucher pro-grams that had some form of a lottery, student achieve-ment/performance data, and, given the political charge of theissue, multiple independent evaluations. This ruled out otherresearch on pilot and ongoing voucher programs in Florida(Figlio & Rouse 2006 only look at the effect of the voucherson school performance), San Antonio (Martinez et al. 1995had no replications and no random selection), and the pri-vately funded Children’s Scholarship Fund in North Carolina


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A powerful political charge has surroundedschool vouchers and has colored related re-search. In a piece discussing reviews of voucherresearch, Howell (2002) summarized that“when scholars survey the nascent empiricalliterature on school choice, they see very dif-ferent things and discern very different lessons.And they will continue to do so until more, andbetter, data are collected from larger, better-financed voucher programs” (p. 79). Takinga step back to view vouchers through thewider lens of public opinion, about 40% ofthe U.S. population supports vouchers, and an-other 40% opposes them (Howell et al. 2008).Although public school teachers tend to op-pose vouchers, blacks and Hispanics show fivetimes as many supporters as opponents (Howellet al. 2008). Herein, we attempt to presentthe strongest available evidence, but it maybe impossible to disentangle entirely even themost rigorous research from the politicallycharged environments in which programs areimplemented.

Milwaukee Parental Choice Program

In 1990, Wisconsin was the first state to ded-icate public funds to vouchers in the Milwau-kee Parental Choice Program (MPCP; Witte &Thorn 1996), implemented under the supportof Republican Governor Tommy Thompson.Aimed at improving the educational opportu-nities of disadvantaged youth, vouchers of up to$4373 were distributed to students from fami-lies with incomes 175% of the federal povertylevel or less (Rouse 1998). Although more than1000 vouchers were available, participation fellshort in part owing to limited spaces provided inprivate schools (McLarin 1995). As late as 1995,only 830 youth were participating (McLarin1995).

Most of the students who signed up for theprogram were not performing well in their orig-

(Greene 2001 took advantage of a random lottery, but therewas no published replication).

inal public schools, according to test scoresgathered through the first four years of theprogram. Families in the MPCP were moreeducated than their public school comparisongroup, but were more likely to be single par-ents, unemployed, and on public assistance thanprivate school counterparts (Witte 1996). Like-wise, voucher applicants were more often mi-norities with lower math and reading test scoresand lower family incomes than Milwaukee pub-lic school students on average (Rouse 1998).Among students offered vouchers, blacks andLatinos were less likely to use them, whereasstudents with single parents and lower fam-ily incomes were more likely to use them(Witte 2000). By 1996, 20 nonreligious pri-vate schools in Milwaukee were participating,including bilingual, African American cultural-emphasis, Montessori, and Waldorf schools(Rouse 1998). Around the same time, GovernorThompson expanded the program to includemore students and allow vouchers to be appliedtoward religious school tuition (this expansionwas delayed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court’sexamination of the constitutionality of applyingpublic funds to religious school tuition; Sanchez1995).

By the late 1990s, there were three evalua-tion studies of the effectiveness of the Milwau-kee program, all confronting challenges posedby the program’s lack of a formal experimentaldesign. Witte (2000) did not identify consistentimprovements for voucher recipients whencompared with a group of public school stu-dents. Greene et al. (1999) compared voucherwinners to students who signed up but lost thelottery and identified significant testing gains inreading, which showed up in the later years ofthe program. Rouse (1998) reanalyzed the datausing an instrumental-variables strategy to con-trol for student ability and family background(as well as nonrandom take-up among lotterywinners) and found small significant testinggains in math but not in reading. Goldhaberet al. (1999) examined the extent to which thedifferences in results could be accounted forby the selection of families into the voucher


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program and did not find support for this expla-nation. Other concerns have been raised aboutwhether the differences in these results couldbe attributed to how authors accounted fornonrandom attrition, as well as the generaliz-ability of these results, given that the Milwau-kee program did not initially include religiousschools and that the assignment was not doneindependently of the school system (Goldhaberet al. 1999, Witte 1996). More recent researchexamined Milwaukee’s program following1998’s expansion and inclusion of religiousschools (Chakrabarti 2008). Using a difference-in-difference approach, the author identifiedacademic improvement in multiple subjectsunder the expanded program, which stoodup to rigorous statistical testing (Chakrabarti2008).

Cleveland Scholarshipand Tuition Program

Amid a contentious history of desegregationstruggles, state takeover, and teacher turnover,the state-funded Cleveland Scholarship andTuition Program began in the fall of 1996 (Hess& McGuinn 2002). Although many suburbanprivate schools were initially unwilling to ac-cept the voucher students, by 1998 over 3600students were participating in the program,attending over 50 mostly religious schools10

(Hess & McGuinn 2002, Peterson et al. 1999),and the program grew to over 5000 studentsin 100 schools by 2006. Aimed at improvingeducation for disadvantaged youth, the pro-gram targeted low-income students (with fam-ily incomes at or below 200% of the povertylevel) and African American youth who werecurrent or former students in the Cleveland

10The Cleveland program was met with immense politi-cal and structural challenges, including the unwillingness ofneighboring suburban districts to participate, given the lowamount of the voucher and the focus of the voucher programon the poorest of the city’s students. This led the Clevelandpublic schools to create several schools specifically so that thevoucher program could operate (see Hess & McGuinn 2002for a detailed history of the program).

public schools. The program originally useda lottery to award vouchers in schools wheresubscription exceeded slots, though later allstudents who applied were awarded vouchers(Howell et al. 2002). Initially, the program waslimited to students through the eighth grade,but it extended to ninth grade and later in 2003(Belfield 2006). The program provides between75% and 90% of tuition, depending on povertylevel. Newspaper articles published at the timeemphasized the controversy surrounding theconstitutionality of applying public funds to-ward religious school tuition (Sadler 1996).Within its first year, Cleveland’s program wasdeemed constitutional, then halted as the OhioCourt of Appeals unanimously determined it tobe unconstitutional (Sanchez 1997). The debatecontinued, eventually reaching the SupremeCourt, which ruled by a single vote in fa-vor of the voucher program (Kronholz &Greenberger 2002).

Evaluations by Metcalf (2001) found nostatistically significant effects on reading andmath for voucher users beyond the first grade,but did find some language benefits. Greeneet al. (1998) and Belfield (2006) have criticizedthe research design because of poor testscore measures, selective school participation,inadequate accounting for individual student-and school-level attributes, and the fact thattheir analyses did not include voucher userswho only attended the private schools for ashort time (Belfield 2006). The most recentresearch using more appropriate comparisongroups, sensitivity tests, subgroup analysesof students, and propensity scores finds noeffects of the Cleveland vouchers on theeducational performance of students (Belfield2006).

New York, Dayton,and Washington, DC

More recently, privately funded school voucherprograms have been implemented with exper-imental designs in New York City, in Dayton,Ohio, and in Washington, DC. In all three


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cities, voucher programs were designed toopen educational opportunities for low- andmoderate-income families, largely from theinner cities (Howell et al. 2002). Althoughstudents had the option to apply vouchersto religious or nonreligious private schools,the vast majority enrolled in religious institu-tions: In New York, about 85% of recipientswere enrolled in Catholic schools two yearsinto the program, with the other 15% ofrecipients largely distributed among Baptist,Lutheran, and other Protestant institutions.In Dayton, a somewhat smaller proportion(72%) of recipients enrolled in Catholicschools, and another 22% enrolled in non-denominational Christian schools. Similarly,71% of Washington recipients enrolled inCatholic schools, with another 20% enrolledin other religious institutions (Howell et al.2002).

Beginning in 1997–1998, under New York’sRepublican Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s strongsupport, students in grades one through fourwho qualified for federal school lunch couldapply for vouchers worth $1400 (Howell et al.2002). This prerequisite for program participa-tion restricted the applicant pool to the poor-est youth of all three programs. Thirteen hun-dred such vouchers were offered. The averagetuition of private schools attended by voucherrecipients was $2100, meaning most familieshad to bridge the gap between vouchers’ valueand tuition (Howell et al. 2002); additionally,families were responsible for transportation be-tween home and school (Howell 2004). Bycomparison, beginning in 1998–1999, kinder-garten through eighth grade students in Daytonwhose families earned less than twice the federalpoverty level could apply for vouchers worth60% of tuition (capped at $1200; Howell et al.2002). Representing the smallest voucher pool,515 such vouchers were offered. That sameyear, students in kindergarten through twelfthgrade in Washington whose families earnedless than 2.7 times the federal poverty levelcould apply for vouchers worth 60% of tu-ition (capped at $1700); 809 such vouchers were

offered. The average tuition of private schoolsattended by voucher recipients in Dayton was$2600 and in Washington $3100 (Howell et al.2002).11

Taking a closer look at program imple-mentation, vouchers were randomly assignedthrough lotteries in all three cities, making fora treatment group of students whose familiesapplied and were given school vouchers (anintent-to-treat group) and a control group ofstudents whose families applied but were notgiven school vouchers. In New York, morethan 17,000 applications were received in theprogram’s first year, nearly twice the num-ber of applications expected (Steinberg 1997).Families provided baseline information, andstudents were tested annually. Researchers an-alyzed results both for students who took ad-vantage of vouchers and transferred schoolsand for students who, despite being offered avoucher, did not change schools (Howell et al.2002).

Analyses performed by Howell et al. (2002)revealed statistically significant academic testscore gains of about six points (one-third of astandard deviation), but only for black students,not white or Hispanic students. However, thedesign had limitations. For example, vouchersonly offered partial private school tuition, sofamilies given vouchers still had to come upwith enough funding to fully finance privatetuition and also support transportation to thenew school, and families who could do so werelikely to differ in important ways from familieswho did not take up the program. Additionally,attrition was substantial: For the second post-treatment observation, 66% of the New York

11The constitutionality of applying public funds to religiousschools remained a central issue in public debate. In 1996,the New York State Board of Regents rejected the proposedvoucher plan (New York Times 1996). However, by using pri-vate funds, these programs skirted the issue of constitution-ality (Wall Street Journal 1997). Vouchers were also debatedin Washington. In the face of strong local opposition, a 2001proposal including $1500 vouchers was rejected, but in 2004a program with vouchers of up to $7500 passed, marking thefirst federally funded voucher program (Hsu 2004).


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sample, 49% of the Dayton sample, and 50%of the Washington sample responded (Howellet al. 2002). In subsequent analyses, Howell(2004) found that, although the parents whoapplied for the program were more likely tobe African American and lower income, thosewho managed to use the voucher to send theirchild to a private school were higher income.They also discovered that the stayers (the lessthan 60% of families who kept their children inthe private schools past three years) were threetimes more likely to be white (Howell 2004).Further, even under ideal implementation, thefindings would still be limited in their gener-alizability. Data will not generalize to studentswhose families did not apply to programs, as nosuch students are included in the data, nor tostudents from higher-income families, as onlylow-income families were offered vouchers. It isalso not clear why the gains were concentratedonly among African American youth (Krueger& Zhu 2004).

Shortly after the Howell et al. papers werepublished, another team of researchers reana-lyzed the same data for the New York site of theprogram, revealing even stronger shortcom-ings (they focused on the New York programbecause it had the highest take-up rate, largestsample size, and lowest attrition rate; Krueger& Zhu 2004). Krueger & Zhu (2004) includedstudents with missing baseline scores (increas-ing the sample size by 44% in the third and fi-nal follow-up year), which dramatically reducedthe academic gains observed for blacks. Fur-ther, they raised great concern with the way inwhich race was defined by Howell et al. (2002):Students were considered black only if theirmothers specifically checked the survey box forblack/African American (non-Hispanic). Stu-dents with black fathers or whose parents filledin a race under “other” such as “black Hispanic”were not considered black. Analyzing the datawith “black” defined as students with a motheror father who checked “black” or who filled ina race that includes black further reduced thesize of the program effect for blacks (Krueger& Zhu 2004).

ChicagoCullen et al. (2006) analyzed the results of theextensive and long-running school choice pro-gram in the Chicago public schools, a programfirst designed in response to a 1980 desegrega-tion consent decree. Although it is not a voucherprogram, we include a brief discussion here be-cause the Chicago open enrollment program al-lows for substantial change in school academicquality and employs lotteries. The research isalso less affected by nonrandom attrition be-cause more than 90% of lottery participantsenroll in the Chicago public schools, and therewas little evidence that those who remain in thesample differ on observable dimensions fromthose who did not. Focusing on eighth gradestudents applying for ninth grade admission,they analyzed administrative data from 194 ran-domized lotteries and more than 14,000 appli-cations (through which students applied to at-tend magnet schools and other programs withintheir district) at 19 oversubscribed schools.

Their results show that students given theopportunity to switch schools (as comparedwith those who lost the lottery) landed inschools with lower poverty and crime rates andhigher peer achievement and attainment levels.For example, winning the lottery to attend oneof the more in-demand schools reduces the per-centage of students receiving free and reducedlunch by over 5 points. Despite the significantcontext changes, lottery winners did not seemto benefit academically. In fact, the academicperformance of some students suffered: Lotterywinners ranked lower throughout high schooland were more likely to drop out after attendingschools with high-achieving peers (Cullen et al.2006). On measures of nonacademic outcomes,students attending schools of their choice re-ported fewer problem behaviors and arrests, butno improvements in terms of school satisfac-tion, teacher trust, or aspirations. The authorstried to explain the results by considering therole of parent involvement, peer discontinuity,and travel distances and found that these factorscould not help explain the lack of educationalimprovement.


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SUMMARY AND LIMITATIONSOF PROGRAMS12

Although the housing and school choicevoucher programs differ in many importantways, we attempt to summarize the impor-tant takeaway points. The findings from theseprograms suggest that many low-income fam-ilies are motivated to improve the well-beingof their children’s environments by relocatingto a new neighborhood or by coming up withthe difference in tuition to help their child at-tend a higher-performing school. After all, mostvoucher programs are oversubscribed. The re-search reviewed here also shows that programscan significantly change the social environ-ments of families and children, and they havesuccessfully done so for thousands of youth.Housing programs have successfully helpedpoor parents move to safer and less disadvan-taged communities and, in some cases, lesssegregated neighborhoods, and school choicevouchers have helped poor students enroll inprivate schools. There is some evidence that im-provements in neighborhood quality and safetycan also improve parental socioeconomic self-sufficiency and mother’s mental health, butagain, some programs differ on these results,and other evaluations have not measured them.

Despite the ability for some of these pro-grams to bring about context changes, it ap-pears much more difficult to improve the edu-cational outcomes of children. Early Gautreauxresults suggested large benefits for children

12One concern with any voucher program is that the removalof the most motivated families and children from schools andcommunities will lead to brain drain or the destabilization oflow-income neighborhoods (Caldas & Bankston 2005). Onthe contrary, one touted promise of school choice programsis that they will induce public school improvement throughcompetition. While these are important considerations, wedo not cover the research that evaluates the community ben-efits or externalities of these programs. In part this is becausethere has not been much research on the topic, especiallywith respect to the assisted housing voucher programs dis-cussed here. For related research on the spillover effects ofhousing vouchers, see Galster et al. (1999); for work that ex-amines the larger effects of school integration plans on publicschool segregation, see Saporito & Sohoni (2006); and for adiscussion of the systemic effects of school choice vouchers,see Hoxby (1996).

moving to the suburbs, but there were nolong-term follow-up studies of these out-comes, and Gautreaux’s design was only quasi-experimental. More recent MTO research con-cludes that neighborhood change is not enoughto substantially improve schooling quality oreducational outcomes. School choice voucherprograms have helped thousands of young peo-ple attend private and religious schools that faroutperform their local public schools. Althoughvoucher programs aimed at low-income stu-dents may lead to academic gains for blackstudents, evidence for other races/ethnicities issimply too mixed to draw a strong conclusion(Gill et al. 2001, Ladd 2002). Although the re-sults vary by city and to some extent by design,the evidence to date does not suggest that theseprograms have led to large gains in achievementfor children. In terms of other social behaviors,it appears that living in low-poverty communi-ties can help to improve the mental health offemale young adults and reduce their substanceuse and other delinquency (although even thisresearch is mixed, as the Gautreaux and MTOprograms come to different conclusions). Onthe other hand, young men do not benefit inthe same way from moving to less poor neigh-borhoods and may be at even higher risk ofgetting arrested and participating in problembehaviors.

However, we may see new results that shedlight on these processes, as the Thompson pro-gram in Baltimore has relocated families to rad-ically different communities and is in its earlystages. Researchers are also about to go into thefield for a ten-year follow-up to MTO to seewhether some of the early improvements havemore substantial long-term benefits. For exam-ple, the reduction in stress among the MTOmovers might translate over time into stableemployment prospects and better outcomes fortheir children. There are also ongoing devel-opments in the evaluation of charter schools(such as the work of Henry Levin and colleaguesat Teachers College), and a long-term evalu-ation of the Milwaukee voucher program (seethe current work of the School Choice Demon-stration Project at the Universities of Arkansas


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and Wisconsin) that might provide insight intohow these environmental changes influenceachievement.

Why were the effects of these programs notlarger? One explanation is that even thoughsome of these programs used random assign-ment and other rigorous design elements, it ispossible that the programs (treatments) werenot of sufficient quality, quantity, or duration toproduce large improvements. Some programschange schools but not neighborhoods; somechange neighborhoods but not schools. Theo-retically, we might expect larger effects if bothcontexts changed, but only one program to date(Gautreaux) has induced that kind of differ-ence. For example, many of the MTO fami-lies moved to neighborhoods that, although lesspoor, were still racially segregated and experi-encing economic declines by the time of the in-terim survey; many families also moved back tohigh-poverty communities after their first year.Despite housing relocation, most of the MTOchildren did not change school districts. InYonkers, the movers and stayers both attendedthe same high-poverty schools, and there waslittle evidence of social integration between themover youth and their new neighbors.

Recent research on the private schoolvouchers demonstrates that although AfricanAmerican parents were more likely to sign upfor the voucher lotteries, they were also muchmore likely than white parents to remove theirchildren from the private schools within threeyears, reducing exposure to higher-qualityenvironments (Howell 2004). Additionally, thecriteria parents use to navigate school choiceoptions may not be those most likely to improveacademic outcomes: Both minority and non-minority parents used criteria of convenience,informal word of mouth, and concerns abouttheir child’s social integration that were raciallyinfluenced (Henig 1995). In the early years ofthe Cleveland program, there were no suburbanschools willing to allow the inner-city childrento attend their schools, and in Milwaukee thelimited spaces provided by private schools alsorestricted the number of voucher recipientsable to switch schools (McLarin 1995). More

generally, the students that private schools arewilling to accept may also differ in meaning-ful ways; private school acceptance is quitedifferent from random school assignment.These considerations highlight how evenwell-designed social programs may not be ableto ensure that all the young people who partic-ipate in them experience the opportunity-richnew environments long enough to make asignificant difference.

Following this explanation, another possi-ble reason that we did not see consistently largegains in educational and social outcomes is thatwe make assumptions that the input, such as aneighborhood change or school quality change,will be enough to lead to large improvements inyouth development. However, the kinds of fam-ilies participating in many of these programshave often been living in poverty for genera-tions and have needs that exist beyond thosethat the vouchers are meant to remedy. It is pos-sible that the limited effects seen from researchon housing and school voucher programs aredue to the lack of additional structural supports.

For example, MTO, Yonkers, andGautreaux only provided housing vouchersand did not provide family-based employmentassistance, transportation help, or educationalinformation and counseling. A housing-onlyprogram, even under optimal conditions,might have limits. To improve parents’ self-sufficiency, we may need to couple neighbor-hood change with the provision of servicesand supports tailored to individual families’needs (cf. Briggs & Turner 2006). Moving toa safer neighborhood might improve mothers’mental health and allow children to socializemore freely in the community. However, thesechanges may need to be supplemented withadditional resources so that parents can findbetter jobs and children can get some help whenthey struggle in more challenging schools. Forexample, there is the possibility that the newThompson program’s outcomes may differfrom those of other programs because thereare extensive multipartner efforts in place tohelp connect these families to resources intheir new communities, such as a city-based


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job-counseling program to include suburbanemployers, a local foundation providing carsfor Thompson families working in the suburbs,and fair housing lawyers working to implementa school liaison program to help families nego-tiate new schooling options when they move.Similar considerations apply for school voucherprograms. As researchers note, the choice pro-grams vary in the amount of tuition theyprovide, and few provide additional support fortransportation or (to our knowledge) tutoringassistance to help children adjust to the newand more challenging school environments.Programs that supplement vouchers with theseadditional resources might be more successful.

Another consideration is that the mobility ordisruption of neighborhood and school changesmasks or eliminates possible gains that mightcome from exposure to new schools and com-munities. There are likely to be trade-offs interms of developmental outcomes and familydynamics that accompany changing contexts.For example, research has suggested that res-idential and school mobility can lead to highschool dropout and delinquency, in part be-cause it severs social ties (Astone & McLanahan1994, Coleman 1988). In most cases, we cannottell the difference between disruption effectsand the effects of new environments becauseboth processes (moving and changing contexts)occur at the same time (cf. Sampson 2008).

FUTURE RESEARCHDIRECTIONS AND POLICY

We recommend several directions for researchdevelopment. First, although rigorous designsthat try to remove the sources of selection biasare critical for understanding the effects of so-cial programs, we also recommend pursuingresearch that directly examines selection pro-cesses. For example, we need to pursue sys-tematic qualitative research to explore how par-ents select environments for their children andto understand better how parents and childrenengage new opportunity structures that comefrom social policy interventions. For example,many researchers agree that although we know

a great deal about neighborhood inequality, wedo not know enough about how families pickneighborhoods (Charles 2003, Rossi & Shlay1982, Sampson 2008).

Some research has begun to explore the is-sues of selection, instead of dismissing it asa “nuisance to be controlled for” (Sampsonet al. 2002). For example, DeLuca & Rosenblatt(2010) use qualitative and quantitative data toexamine why the MTO program did not leadto better schooling environments for the chil-dren in the experimental group. They find thatalthough parents received housing subsidies tomove to low-poverty areas, most did not acquirehousing in the communities that had the high-est performing schools. Part of the explana-tion lies in the constraints of the rental market,and part of it is influenced by parents’ informa-tion and beliefs. When asked about their schoolchoices, many MTO parents did not consideracademic rigor as important as a welcoming at-mosphere, others thought it was better not toswitch schools, and still others believed that iftheir children worked hard enough, it did notmatter where they went to school. Althoughthese beliefs seem counterintuitive, consideringjust how low performing many of their origi-nal neighborhood schools were, it is importantto remember that these families likely neverhad experience with better schools or the infor-mation that many middle-class parents use inmaking choices about their children’s teachers,courses, and schools. This kind of research re-minds us that poor parents are not just wealthyparents without money—they engage oppor-tunities differently based on the conditions oftheir lives.13

We need more research that gives us a win-dow into these processes so that we can betterunderstand which programs will work and how

13Similar findings were identified in the school choice lit-erature: For example, high levels of segregation in magnetschools appear to be fueled by parents seeking convenientschools and a good environment for their children’s socialintegration rather than academically superior schools and byparents relying on word of mouth to learn about schools (per-petuating advantage or disadvantage among certain circles ofparents; Henig 1995).


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they can be improved. Certainly experimentalevaluations of policy interventions can providevaluable causal estimates and effect sizes, butwe are left not knowing how a program did ordid not produce improvements. This can leadto the conclusion that some policy approachesare ineffective when they are really a necessarybut insufficient part of the solution to the prob-lems poor families face. These differences arecritical. Other examples of qualitative researchthat sheds light on how social programs workinclude Romich & Weisner’s (2000) research onhow parents manage funds from their EarnedIncome Tax Credit, and Gibson & Weisner’s(2002) research on take-up rates in antipovertyprograms.

Second, in part because of ethical resistanceto randomizing treatments to individuals, aswell as political resistance to bringing pooror minority children and families into middle-class neighborhoods, we agree with researcherswho are increasingly advocating for group ran-domized trials where entire schools or com-munities get a treatment (St. Pierre & Rossi2006, Boruch et al. 2004, Oakes 2004). In ad-dition to the ethical benefits, these designs re-move concerns about disruption effects, inde-pendence of treatment, and crossover effects,in which control group members gain access tothe treatment on their own. Of course, these de-signs have their limitations as well in terms ofcost, statistical power (given fewer cases), andthe challenge of theory (Shadish et al. 2001,St. Pierre & Rossi 2006).

Third, there is a difference between (a) re-search assessing how much variation in exist-ing neighborhood and school contexts helpsexplain the differential life course outcomesof young people and (b) research that tries tounderstand the effects of changes that comefrom housing and education policies. There-fore, we need to be more careful and creativein our approach to quantitative research thatuses naturally occurring variation in observa-tional data. Although there have been many ad-vances (such as propensity score analyses), manyresearchers still rely on national panel data tostudy the effects of social context. This poses

several problems, as noted by other researchers,but one significant and rarely discussed issueis exchangeability. By virtue of social stratifica-tion, it is rare that we observe poor families inaffluent communities. This poses problems forestimation because we are making off-supportinferences; in other words, we are applying esti-mates for regression models to individuals whoare not present in the data (Oakes 2004).

One way to deal with this issue is to focusmore attention on interventions or policychanges that occur within specific communityor single-city panel studies, or build theseconsiderations into design (see research usingthe Mobile Youth Study in Alabama for anexample; Bolland et al. 2005). The advantageof such data, relative to a multicity or nationalsurvey, is that by the nature of its homogeneity,single-site studies control for some hidden bias.In a recent article, Rosenbaum (2005) notedthat in the absence of randomization, “reduc-ing heterogeneity. . .reduces both samplingvariability and sensitivity to unobserved bias”(p. 148). Local samples reduce hidden biasthat might accompany selection into differentenvironments (cf. Rosenbaum 2005) and alsomake it more likely that youth are exchangeable(Oakes 2004, Oakes & Johnson 2006, Winship& Sobel 2004). Others provide guidance andadditional modeling strategies to handle theseand other limitations of nonexperimental data(Heckman et al. 1998, Winship & Morgan1999).

Fourth, we noticed that, particularly in thecase of school vouchers, there was little researchthat helped us understand how the programswork and what elements need to change in or-der to observe greater improvements if theyare possible. One of the distinct features ofour review is the large number of nonsocio-logical sources we bring to bear on our assess-ment of these topics. In other words, we relyon a substantial body of economics research. Inpart, this is due to the innovative nature of thecounterfactual design and value-added ap-proaches that the field of economics has devel-oped over the past few decades. We searchedboth sociological and education literatures for


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research that evaluates the impact of schoolchoice programs on young people and came upwith little. Sociologists have for years been mak-ing great efforts to understand how environ-ments affect the behaviors of individuals. In thecase of programs such as those presented here,we need to make more progress. For example,what circumstances lead minority families toleave private schools after receiving a voucher?What difficulties do children face in more rig-orous schools, and can these be overcome to in-crease retention? These questions are ripe forexploration by sociologists of education.

On a final note, as a discipline that concernsitself with using social science to inform socialpolicy, we need to think carefully about how weinterpret the results of our research for poli-cymaking. Many scholars and funding agencieswant their research to make a difference. Butthere are realities that make it hard to come toquick conclusions about the relevance of socialprogram research for public policy on a largescale. The success or failure of school and hous-ing programs depends on at least two things: in-dividual choices and community buy in. Manyfamilies do choose to improve their well-beingthrough opportunities presented in innovativepolicies, and many benefit from their participa-tion. However, the realities of how families ap-proach social policy opportunities and use pro-grams can clash with the theory of how theseprograms work.14 Housing and school choiceprograms rely on parents’ motivation to apply,

14The results from MTO were the subject of an illuminatingexchange between sociologists and economists focused onthe issues of selection and neighborhood choice. Clampet-Lundquist & Massey (2008) reanalyzed the data motivatedby several of the program’s weaknesses—namely that manyfamilies selected not to move, many also left low-povertyneighborhoods within a short period of time, and only somefamilies relocated to neighborhoods of appreciably higher so-cioeconomic quality and low segregation. The authors usedregression-based analyses to see whether family outcomesvary by the type of neighborhood families move into andfind results that differ from the experimental analyses pre-viously published. In turn, Ludwig et al. (2008) wrote a re-joinder, explaining why the experimental results hold up tothe Clampet-Lundquist & Massey critiques and why nonex-perimental estimates of program effects are flawed. Samp-son (2008) added to the exchange by discussing the larger

the marshaling of extra resources to move orsupplement a voucher, information about bet-ter schools and communities, and realistic op-tions to access rental housing and schools insuch communities. These are often in short sup-ply, and most programs do not offer the extrasupports. In other words, some of the very chal-lenges that prevent poor families from accessingsocial opportunities in the first place do not goaway when they participate in a school or hous-ing intervention. These additional difficulties,such as poor health or unstable family networks,continue to influence their lives in ways thatmake it hard for them to fully realize the bene-fits of these programs as policymakers imaginedthem.

Additionally, the reality of social stratifica-tion makes it difficult to know how such pol-icy efforts will operate in the present systemif we were to scale up these efforts at the ag-gregate level (metropolitan area or school sys-tem). There are larger social and structuralforces (e.g., housing discrimination, conflictsover school funding between cities and sub-urbs, and selective private school standards) thatexplain why we do not see large numbers ofminority families sharing schools and commu-nities with white middle-class families. Theserealities provide the context in which we aretrying to implement social programs, and thereare often difficulties.

We know from the MTO and Yonkers pro-grams and the school voucher cases that thereis substantial political pushback from existingsocial systems, whether they are the suburbs ofBaltimore City or the teachers’ unions in Cleve-land or Washington, DC. Both housing dis-persal programs and school voucher programswere designed in part to address racial andsocioeconomic disparities in access to resourcesand to improve life outcomes. Years of researchon the effects of busing and studies of whiteflight demonstrate the systemic challenges andobstacles of political will that stand in the way

relevance of MTO to the field and the realities of structuralconstraint in urban areas.


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of realizing the benefits of reducing inequalityfor young people (Clark 2008, Coleman et al.1975, Schelling 1971, Tiebout 1956). Researchon the effectiveness of programs that changethe opportunity structure for small groupsof individuals needs to be considered in lightof larger structural forces that shape thatopportunity structure in the first place.

We are not suggesting that school and hous-ing interventions are not beneficial—in fact, theevidence we review supports the idea that thelives of thousands of children and families havebeen changed by these programs. For exam-ple, families in the Gautreaux program experi-enced radical changes in the racial composition

of their new neighborhoods, and the experi-mental MTO families moved to communitiesthat had poverty rates that were four timeslower than their original housing projects; thesechanges are rarely seen in observational data.However, not all of the individual-level resultsfor youth who participated in these programshave been consistently large and long-term.Therefore, we suggest that researchers seri-ously consider the individual-level processesthat determine how youth development can beimproved through such programs as well asthe structural and political conditions that canallow for such programs to work at a largerscale.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The authors are not aware of any biases that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of thisreview.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The first author thanks the Spencer Foundation for a Resident Fellowship that supported thewriting of this review. We also thank J. Michael Oakes, Douglas Massey, and Lingxin Hao forcomments on earlier drafts.

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Annual Reviewof Sociology

Volume 35, 2009Contents

FrontispieceHerbert J. Gans � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � xiv

Prefatory Chapters

Working in Six Research Areas: A Multi-Field Sociological CareerHerbert J. Gans � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 1

Theory and Methods

Ethnicity, Race, and NationalismRogers Brubaker � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �21

Interdisciplinarity: A Critical AssessmentJerry A. Jacobs and Scott Frickel � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �43

Nonparametric Methods for Modeling Nonlinearityin Regression AnalysisRobert Andersen � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �67

Gender Ideology: Components, Predictors, and ConsequencesShannon N. Davis and Theodore N. Greenstein � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �87

Genetics and Social InquiryJeremy Freese and Sara Shostak � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 107

Social Processes

Race Mixture: Boundary Crossing in Comparative PerspectiveEdward E. Telles and Christina A. Sue � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 129

The Sociology of Emotional LaborAmy S. Wharton � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 147

Societal Responses toTerrorist AttacksSeymour Spilerman and Guy Stecklov � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 167

Intergenerational Family Relations in Adulthood: Patterns, Variations,and Implications in the Contemporary United StatesTeresa Toguchi Swartz � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 191

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Institutions and Culture

Sociology of Sex WorkRonald Weitzer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 213

The Sociology of War and the MilitaryMeyer Kestnbaum � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 235

Socioeconomic Attainments of Asian AmericansArthur Sakamoto, Kimberly A. Goyette, and ChangHwan Kim � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 255

Men, Masculinity, and Manhood ActsDouglas Schrock and Michael Schwalbe � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 277

Formal Organizations

American Trade Unions and Data Limitations: A New Agendafor Labor StudiesCaleb Southworth and Judith Stepan-Norris � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 297

Outsourcing and the Changing Nature of WorkAlison Davis-Blake and Joseph P. Broschak � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 321

Taming Prometheus: Talk About Safety and CultureSusan S. Silbey � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 341

Political and Economic Sociology

Paradoxes of China’s Economic BoomMartin King Whyte � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 371

Political Sociology and Social MovementsAndrew G. Walder � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 393

Differentiation and Stratification

New Directions in Life Course ResearchKarl Ulrich Mayer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 413

Is America Fragmenting?Claude S. Fischer and Greggor Mattson � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 435

Switching Social Contexts: The Effects of Housing Mobility andSchool Choice Programs on Youth OutcomesStefanie DeLuca and Elizabeth Dayton � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 457

Income Inequality and Social DysfunctionRichard G. Wilkinson and Kate E. Pickett � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 493

Educational Assortative Marriage in Comparative PerspectiveHans-Peter Blossfeld � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 513

vi Contents

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Individual and Society

Nonhumans in Social InteractionKaren A. Cerulo � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 531

Demography

Social Class Differentials in Health and Mortality: Patterns andExplanations in Comparative PerspectiveIrma T. Elo � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 553

Policy

The Impacts of Wal-Mart: The Rise and Consequences of the World’sDominant RetailerGary Gereffi and Michelle Christian � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 573

Indexes

Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 26–35 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 593

Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volumes 26–35 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 597

Errata

An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Sociology articles may be found athttp://soc.annualreviews.org/errata.shtml

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