Amy Stuart Wells
Biographic Data
| ID | 324237 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Amy Stuart Wells |
| GIVEN NAMES | Amy Stuart |
| FAMILY NAME | Wells |
| SIGNATURE | WELLS A S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Columbia University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 412 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Schools, Charter
Since the beginning of charter school reform in the United States nearly 30 years ago, the number of charter schools and state laws approving them has ballooned despite a lack of evidence that they achieve their intended goals. A total of 45 states and the District of Columbia have charter school laws, and approximately 7,000 charter schools enrolling 3.2 million students existed as of fall 2019. Meanwhile, the research findings on charter school…
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: The Resegregation of Public Schools Via Charter School Reform
This article examines charter school reform in the midst of gentrifying urban spaces and documents, through extant research and the findings from our research, the role of school choice in perpetuating school segregation in racially diverse neighborhoods. We argue that 65 years after Brown v. Board of Education, the more the specific mechanism—policies and contexts—of racial segregation in education change, the more solidified the hierarchies of …
The Process of Racial Resegregation in Housing and Schools: The Sociology of Reputation
The United States has a long history of racial and ethnic segregation in housing patterns and public school enrollment as well as efforts to dismantle this segregation. This essay discusses what we have learned in the United States about how difficult it is to halt the patterns of housing and school segregation even as our nation becomes more diverse, racial attitudes are reportedly improving, and the twentieth century urban‐suburban racial disti…
School Choice Policies and Racial Segregation: Where White Parents’ Good Intentions, Anxiety, and Privilege Collide
A growing body of school choice research has shown that when school choice policies are not designed to racially or socioeconomically integrate schools, that is, are “colorblind” policies, they generally manage to do the opposite, leading to greater stratification and separation of students by race and ethnicity across schools and programs. Since white, advantaged parents are more likely to get their children into the highest-status schools regar…
Schools, Charter
In 1991, Minnesota passed the first charter school law in the United States, allowing state funds to support schools that operate autonomously from the public educational system. The charter school idea caught on quickly, with 40 states and the District of Columbia passing charter school laws between 1991 and 2006. By fall 2005, there were approximately 3,600 charter schools enrolling about 1 million students across the country
Choosing Tracks: “Freedom of Choice” in Detracking Schools
In this article, we discuss how and why educators’ attempts at detracking by providing students and parents with greater “freedom of choice” in track placement often result in little movement of low-and middle-track students into high-track classes. Using data from six racially mixed high schools undergoing detracking reform, the authors contend that these schools’ low- and middle-track students, most of whom were African American and Latino, res…
Defining Democracy in the Neoliberal Age: Charter School Reform and Educational Consumption
In this article Wells, Slayton, and Scott draw on data from their charter school research to question the extent to which “democratic” and “market-based” schools are dichotomous. They argue that in the current political and economic climate, free-market and deregulatory educational reforms such as charter school laws are perceived to be highly “democratic” by their neoliberal advocates and by many of the suburban school board members and superint…
Charter Schools as Postmodern Paradox: Rethinking Social Stratification in an Age of Deregulated School Choice
For the last two-and-a-half years, authors Amy Stuart Wells, Alejandra Lopez, Janelle Scott, and Jennifer Jellison Holme have been engaged with a team of researchers in a comprehensive qualitative study of charter schools in ten California school districts. They have emerged from this study with a new understanding of how the implementation of a specific education policy can reflect much broader social changes, including the transformation from m…
Choosing schools: Vouchers and American education; Financing education: The struggle between governmental monopoly and parental control
Education Culture, Economy, and Society
Education aims to establish the social study of education at the centre of political and sociological debate about post industrial societies. It looks at major changes which have taken place in the late 20th century and at educational policy
Stepping over the Color Line: African-American Students in White Suburban Schools
Detracking: The Social Construction of Ability, Cultural Politics, and Resistance to Reform
Structural changes necessary in detracking efforts challenge not only the technical dimensions of schooling, but also the normative and political dimensions. We argue that detracking reform confronts fundamental issues of power, control, and legitimacy that are played out in ideological struggles over the meaning of knowledge, intelligence, ability, and merit. This article presents results from a three-year longitudinal case study of ten racially…
The Politics of Culture: Understanding Local Political Resistance to Detracking in Racially Mixed Schools
In this article, Amy Stuart Wells and Irene Serna examine the political struggles associated with detracking reform. Drawing on their three-year study of ten racially and socioeconomically mixed schools that are implementing detracking reform, the authors take us beyond the school walls to better understand the broad social forces that influence detracking reform. They focus specifically on the role of elite parents and how their political and cu…
Potential Pitfalls of Systemic Reform: Early Lessons from Research on Detracking
Cet article met en evidence les difficultes qu'il y a a concilier les objectifs tels que ceux definis par la reforme du systeme scolaire americain « Goals 2000 », a savoir : une centralisation des standards et des programmes d'instruction et d'evaluation, assorti d'un niveau local de decision requis en direction des etablissements afin qu'ils elaborent des strategies pour la mise en oeuvre de ces standards et de ces programmes. Les AA. montrent q…
Bounding the Case within Its Context: A Constructivist Approach to Studying Detracking Reform
This article presents the story of our research team's efforts to conduct a multisite case study of 10 racially mixed schools engaged in effort to reduce ability grouping or tracking. Although the politics of education research and our own theoretical frame work told us that detracking reform is strongly influenced by the politics and norms in the local school community, we were not sure how to study a school-level change while examining the broa…
Perpetuation Theory and the Long-Term Effects of School Desegregation
For the last 30 years, the bulk of research on school desegregation has focused on the short-term effects of this policy on the achievement, self-esteem, and intergroup relations of students in racially mixed versus segregated schools. These research foci reflect a more psychological approach to understanding the goals and purposes of school desegregation, viewing it as a policy designed to save the hearts and minds” of African-American students …
Land of Fair Promise: Politics and Reform in Los Angeles Schools, 1885-1941.Judith Rosenberg Raftery
Public Funds for Private Schools: Political and First Amendment Considerations
This article analyzes the private school choice debate through a review of the political and judicial history of efforts to provide private schools and their patrons with various forms of public aid. It also examines recent Supreme Court rulings that would apply to a constitutional challenge of a federal tuition voucher or tax credit program and discusses the growing political support for such plans. Through this long-term analysis, the authors a…
Education Culture, Economy, and Society
Education aims to establish the social study of education at the centre of political and sociological debate about post industrial societies. It looks at major changes which have taken place in the late 20th century and at educational policy
School Choice Policies and Racial Segregation: Where White Parents’ Good Intentions, Anxiety, and Privilege Collide
A growing body of school choice research has shown that when school choice policies are not designed to racially or socioeconomically integrate schools, that is, are “colorblind” policies, they generally manage to do the opposite, leading to greater stratification and separation of students by race and ethnicity across schools and programs. Since white, advantaged parents are more likely to get their children into the highest-status schools regar…
Choosing Tracks: “Freedom of Choice” in Detracking Schools
In this article, we discuss how and why educators’ attempts at detracking by providing students and parents with greater “freedom of choice” in track placement often result in little movement of low-and middle-track students into high-track classes. Using data from six racially mixed high schools undergoing detracking reform, the authors contend that these schools’ low- and middle-track students, most of whom were African American and Latino, res…
Defining Democracy in the Neoliberal Age: Charter School Reform and Educational Consumption
In this article Wells, Slayton, and Scott draw on data from their charter school research to question the extent to which “democratic” and “market-based” schools are dichotomous. They argue that in the current political and economic climate, free-market and deregulatory educational reforms such as charter school laws are perceived to be highly “democratic” by their neoliberal advocates and by many of the suburban school board members and superint…
Potential Pitfalls of Systemic Reform: Early Lessons from Research on Detracking
Cet article met en evidence les difficultes qu'il y a a concilier les objectifs tels que ceux definis par la reforme du systeme scolaire americain « Goals 2000 », a savoir : une centralisation des standards et des programmes d'instruction et d'evaluation, assorti d'un niveau local de decision requis en direction des etablissements afin qu'ils elaborent des strategies pour la mise en oeuvre de ces standards et de ces programmes. Les AA. montrent q…
Bounding the Case within Its Context: A Constructivist Approach to Studying Detracking Reform
This article presents the story of our research team's efforts to conduct a multisite case study of 10 racially mixed schools engaged in effort to reduce ability grouping or tracking. Although the politics of education research and our own theoretical frame work told us that detracking reform is strongly influenced by the politics and norms in the local school community, we were not sure how to study a school-level change while examining the broa…
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: The Resegregation of Public Schools Via Charter School Reform
This article examines charter school reform in the midst of gentrifying urban spaces and documents, through extant research and the findings from our research, the role of school choice in perpetuating school segregation in racially diverse neighborhoods. We argue that 65 years after Brown v. Board of Education, the more the specific mechanism—policies and contexts—of racial segregation in education change, the more solidified the hierarchies of …
Stepping over the Color Line: African-American Students in White Suburban Schools
Public Funds for Private Schools: Political and First Amendment Considerations
This article analyzes the private school choice debate through a review of the political and judicial history of efforts to provide private schools and their patrons with various forms of public aid. It also examines recent Supreme Court rulings that would apply to a constitutional challenge of a federal tuition voucher or tax credit program and discusses the growing political support for such plans. Through this long-term analysis, the authors a…
Public Funds for Private Schools: Political and First Amendment Considerations
This article analyzes the private school choice debate through a review of the political and judicial history of efforts to provide private schools and their patrons with various forms of public aid. It also examines recent Supreme Court rulings that would apply to a constitutional challenge of a federal tuition voucher or tax credit program and discusses the growing political support for such plans. Through this long-term analysis, the authors a…
Perpetuation Theory and the Long-Term Effects of School Desegregation
For the last 30 years, the bulk of research on school desegregation has focused on the short-term effects of this policy on the achievement, self-esteem, and intergroup relations of students in racially mixed versus segregated schools. These research foci reflect a more psychological approach to understanding the goals and purposes of school desegregation, viewing it as a policy designed to save the hearts and minds” of African-American students …
Land of Fair Promise: Politics and Reform in Los Angeles Schools, 1885-1941.Judith Rosenberg Raftery
Bounding the Case within Its Context: A Constructivist Approach to Studying Detracking Reform
This article presents the story of our research team's efforts to conduct a multisite case study of 10 racially mixed schools engaged in effort to reduce ability grouping or tracking. Although the politics of education research and our own theoretical frame work told us that detracking reform is strongly influenced by the politics and norms in the local school community, we were not sure how to study a school-level change while examining the broa…
The Politics of Culture: Understanding Local Political Resistance to Detracking in Racially Mixed Schools
In this article, Amy Stuart Wells and Irene Serna examine the political struggles associated with detracking reform. Drawing on their three-year study of ten racially and socioeconomically mixed schools that are implementing detracking reform, the authors take us beyond the school walls to better understand the broad social forces that influence detracking reform. They focus specifically on the role of elite parents and how their political and cu…
Potential Pitfalls of Systemic Reform: Early Lessons from Research on Detracking
Cet article met en evidence les difficultes qu'il y a a concilier les objectifs tels que ceux definis par la reforme du systeme scolaire americain « Goals 2000 », a savoir : une centralisation des standards et des programmes d'instruction et d'evaluation, assorti d'un niveau local de decision requis en direction des etablissements afin qu'ils elaborent des strategies pour la mise en oeuvre de ces standards et de ces programmes. Les AA. montrent q…
Stepping over the Color Line: African-American Students in White Suburban Schools
Detracking: The Social Construction of Ability, Cultural Politics, and Resistance to Reform
Structural changes necessary in detracking efforts challenge not only the technical dimensions of schooling, but also the normative and political dimensions. We argue that detracking reform confronts fundamental issues of power, control, and legitimacy that are played out in ideological struggles over the meaning of knowledge, intelligence, ability, and merit. This article presents results from a three-year longitudinal case study of ten racially…
Choosing schools: Vouchers and American education; Financing education: The struggle between governmental monopoly and parental control
Education Culture, Economy, and Society
Education aims to establish the social study of education at the centre of political and sociological debate about post industrial societies. It looks at major changes which have taken place in the late 20th century and at educational policy
Charter Schools as Postmodern Paradox: Rethinking Social Stratification in an Age of Deregulated School Choice
For the last two-and-a-half years, authors Amy Stuart Wells, Alejandra Lopez, Janelle Scott, and Jennifer Jellison Holme have been engaged with a team of researchers in a comprehensive qualitative study of charter schools in ten California school districts. They have emerged from this study with a new understanding of how the implementation of a specific education policy can reflect much broader social changes, including the transformation from m…
Choosing Tracks: “Freedom of Choice” in Detracking Schools
In this article, we discuss how and why educators’ attempts at detracking by providing students and parents with greater “freedom of choice” in track placement often result in little movement of low-and middle-track students into high-track classes. Using data from six racially mixed high schools undergoing detracking reform, the authors contend that these schools’ low- and middle-track students, most of whom were African American and Latino, res…
Defining Democracy in the Neoliberal Age: Charter School Reform and Educational Consumption
In this article Wells, Slayton, and Scott draw on data from their charter school research to question the extent to which “democratic” and “market-based” schools are dichotomous. They argue that in the current political and economic climate, free-market and deregulatory educational reforms such as charter school laws are perceived to be highly “democratic” by their neoliberal advocates and by many of the suburban school board members and superint…
Schools, Charter
In 1991, Minnesota passed the first charter school law in the United States, allowing state funds to support schools that operate autonomously from the public educational system. The charter school idea caught on quickly, with 40 states and the District of Columbia passing charter school laws between 1991 and 2006. By fall 2005, there were approximately 3,600 charter schools enrolling about 1 million students across the country
School Choice Policies and Racial Segregation: Where White Parents’ Good Intentions, Anxiety, and Privilege Collide
A growing body of school choice research has shown that when school choice policies are not designed to racially or socioeconomically integrate schools, that is, are “colorblind” policies, they generally manage to do the opposite, leading to greater stratification and separation of students by race and ethnicity across schools and programs. Since white, advantaged parents are more likely to get their children into the highest-status schools regar…
The Process of Racial Resegregation in Housing and Schools: The Sociology of Reputation
The United States has a long history of racial and ethnic segregation in housing patterns and public school enrollment as well as efforts to dismantle this segregation. This essay discusses what we have learned in the United States about how difficult it is to halt the patterns of housing and school segregation even as our nation becomes more diverse, racial attitudes are reportedly improving, and the twentieth century urban‐suburban racial disti…
The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: The Resegregation of Public Schools Via Charter School Reform
This article examines charter school reform in the midst of gentrifying urban spaces and documents, through extant research and the findings from our research, the role of school choice in perpetuating school segregation in racially diverse neighborhoods. We argue that 65 years after Brown v. Board of Education, the more the specific mechanism—policies and contexts—of racial segregation in education change, the more solidified the hierarchies of …
Schools, Charter
Since the beginning of charter school reform in the United States nearly 30 years ago, the number of charter schools and state laws approving them has ballooned despite a lack of evidence that they achieve their intended goals. A total of 45 states and the District of Columbia have charter school laws, and approximately 7,000 charter schools enrolling 3.2 million students existed as of fall 2019. Meanwhile, the research findings on charter school…
Political science (17 works) · Law (14 works) · Sociology (14 works) · School Choice and Performance (13 works) · Politics (10 works) · Law (7 works) · Critical Race Theory in Education (6 works) · Parental Involvement in Education (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Public Administration (6 works)