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theses

This dissertation examines the ways that neighborhood stakeholders inserted space and place into the school closure debate in Philadelphia in 2013. I ask, specifically: (1) how stakeholders invoked place in protesting and making sense of school closures, (2) how they understand the significance of their location (their spatial position) in the context of this debate, and (3) how they understand the significance of school closures for their neighborhoods. The project is structured around case studies of three Philadelphia neighborhoods that each had at least one school recommended for closure. I draw on video and transcription records of public meetings held during the closure debate, as well as interviews I conducted with neighborhood stakeholders in the wake of the closure process. Political protest rooted in and leveraging place is particularly significant in the context of policy regimes that prioritize mobility through the market mechanism of individual choice. My analysis in this dissertation draws out three ways neighborhood stakeholders leveraged place in a policy debate framed by such market logic: (1) using place (i.e., spatial positionality) to critique structural inequality, (2) leveraging productions of place identity as claims to space, and (3) naming the place implications of broader systemic transformation. From a policy standpoint, this project considers the ways that the failure to acknowledge the spatial implications of the marketization of public education and the place-consequences of school closures obscures inequalities reproduced through these reforms. From a theoretical standpoint, this dissertation is a study of the political capacity of situated actors and, specifically, the role of place and place identity in contesting spatial inequality.

ETD_7762

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Ryan M. Good

doi:10.7282/T3959M1X

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.