Black Movement, Black Striving: Perceptions of Place and School Choice Decision-Making in Metropolitan Detroit

Abstract

Using a critical phenomenological methodology (Salamon, 2018; van Manen, 1990), this study aims to better understand how Black families’ perceptions of place shape their physical movement in pursuit of quality schools and educational opportunity in Metro Detroit. By perceptions of place, I refer to the ways in which families think about, feel about, and imagine Metro Detroit municipalities. Moreover, I draw from theories on spatial imaginaries and opportunity structures to emphasize the intertwined nature of place, race, access to opportunity, and sense-making in the U.S. The Metro Detroit region has experienced significant Black demographic shifts over the past 20 years, where what some call “Black flight” has dramatically changed school and communities. Indeed, from 2000 to 2010, Detroit had the largest Black population loss in the U.S., and many Black families relocated from Detroit to surrounding suburbs (Frey, 2011). Given this phenomenon of Black movement and relocation, I chose to study the experiences of seven diverse Black families living in Redford and West Bloomfield Townships to understand how their perceptions of place—particularly, Redford, West Bloomfield, Detroit, and other municipalities identified by families—influenced the school and community choices they made. Redford and West Bloomfield are two Metro Detroit suburbs that have experienced significant growth in their Black population. Yet, the towns present different ethno-racial, socioeconomic, and political dynamics that are consequential to how Black families perceive and experience schools and communities.

Findings show that families’ racial and place-based subjectivities played a significant role in informing their perceptions of place and choices on where to live and school their children. Namely, most families moved and chose communities based on parents’ connection and care for Detroit, or other predominantly Black urban cities. Families also chose schools and communities with mindfulness of the impacts of race and racism—particularly the importance of same-race peers and teachers. Importantly, families’ ability and desire to access suburban schools and communities were significantly shaped by their socioeconomic status and economic precarity caused by deindustrialization and the 2008 recession.

Based on my findings, I argue that the changing landscape of U.S. metropolitan regions offers opportunities for more diverse schools and more importantly, diverse epistemologies to inform education policy and practice. While families certainly sought to secure advantages for their children by moving to the suburbs, they also held democratic perceptions of public resources and engaged in their own strategic placemaking to create opportunity structures not accessible to Black families in city or suburban municipalities in the region. This aligns with a long tradition of Black movement, placemaking, and opportunity seeking in the U.S. I offer the concept of epistemologies of Black opportunity seeking to reframe understandings of Black movement and school choice decision-making. The concept also accounts for both structural and sociocultural dynamics influencing Black families’ school and community choices amid widespread demographic change in U.S. metropolitan landscapes.