School Quality and the Vulnerability of the Black Middle Class: The Continuing Significance of Race as a Predictor of Disparate Schooling Environments

Abstract

Scholarship discussing the impact of class on black disadvantage centers around three general claims: (1) higher socioeconomic status (SES) curtails the disadvantages associated with race, (2) class does little to mitigate racial disadvantage because of the persistence of racism, and (3) race and class interact to produce different outcomes for persons from different race-class groups. Despite the abundance of research in the area, few studies explicitly examine whether race and class interact to influence school quality. Using data from the eighth grade wave of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study and other sources, the authors find significant racial disparities in school quality that class and residential context cannot account for. However, neighborhood poverty rates did increase the probability of private school enrollment for higher SES blacks compared to lower SES blacks and higher SES whites. The authors conclude that race remains an enduring obstacle to educational equity for poor as well as nonpoor blacks.