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Jeremy Luke Thesis.pdf (821.74 KB)

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Parental use of Geographical Aspects of Charter Schools as Heuristic Devices in the School Choice Process

Luke, Jeremy B
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366364829

Abstract Details

2013, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, EDU Policy and Leadership.
Policy makers have increasingly turned to school choice and, particularly, charter schools, in an effort to increase educational quality and equity for elementary and high school students. Many school choice policies work under the assumption that parents, acting as rational agents, will choose the best possible school for their child when given the opportunity and, collectively, these choices will increase the aggregate quality of K-12 education. Parent rationality is an important component to this market-based model which is one aspect of a larger set of neoliberal reforms that reach far beyond education. This study draws on twelve interviews with fourteen parents and six observations of charter school informational meetings at two schools to argue that parents are not purely rational and thorough in their choice process. I argue that parents use heuristic devices, mental approaches to select and analyze information surrounding a complicated decision, that rely on experiences and memories of place-based geographical aspects of the schools in their choice sets. Parents came to understand the schools as geographical places through their experiences of certain aspects of the schools such as the student body, the physical building, the surrounding community, and their sense of belonging or familiarity with the school. Parents did not make their school choice decisions in a careful, measured, and rational manner. Instead they relied on visceral memories, first impressions and experiences of the geographical aspects the schools they considered. This study adds to existing research that problematizes the notion that parents will rationally choose the best schools for their children. It also highlights several key issues that policy makers and school leaders can address in order to help parents in their choice process.
Bruce Kimball, Dr. (Advisor)
Jan Nespor, Dr. (Committee Member)
122 p.
Education Policy; Geography; Political Science; Psychology; Public Policy; Social Research; Sociology
Charter; charter schools; school search; parent; parents; heuristics; geography; place; space; decision; qualitative; institutional ethnography; parents'; choice; school choice; rational; process

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Luke, J. B. (2013). Parental use of Geographical Aspects of Charter Schools as Heuristic Devices in the School Choice Process [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366364829

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Luke, Jeremy. Parental use of Geographical Aspects of Charter Schools as Heuristic Devices in the School Choice Process. 2013. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366364829.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Luke, Jeremy. "Parental use of Geographical Aspects of Charter Schools as Heuristic Devices in the School Choice Process." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1366364829

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1366364829
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© 2013, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Parental use of Geographical Aspects of Charter Schools as Heuristic Devices in the School Choice Process by Jeremy B Luke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.