ABSTRACT
The previous chapters have uncovered the social relations and district organizational structures, cultures, and practices that were operating in the school choice context at the time of my study. The chapters illustrated how local schools, district level departments, and administrators are all active participants in helping to shape the discourses that construct (and are constructed by) parents' choice work. Picture the four pages of magnet schools listed in the Opportunities for Success brochure that I described in Chapter 2, grouped by theme and containing only a phone number to call for more information. Think about how parents negotiated the application process, about the constraints established by textually-mediated processes and practices so evident in the brochure; think of all the work that needs to be done before an application should be filled out and sent in by parents. Now picture the work parents actually did and the new knowledge they had (or did not have) as a result. The application sent in to the district, then, had various social relations shaping and constructing how the choice that was made happened.
