ABSTRACT
The en masse departure of white middle-class parents away from the urban public school, or ‘white flight’, to the more prestigious suburban schools, is a commonly understood (and accepted) concept. The ‘flight of middle-class families to the suburbs in search of “better” schools was a common pattern and the subject of much concern’ (Cucchiara and Horvat, 2014: 495). However, it is increasingly evident that, in different OECD countries and in the context of changing economic conditions, some sections of the middle class are repopulating the urban public school. Research trends ‘suggest that middle-class parents may be a growing constituency in urban public schools’ (Posey, 2012: 1). Whilst there are key differences in how middle-class parents are navigating public school choices, from ‘seeking a critical mass’ (Posey-Maddox et al., 2014) to resisting conventional markers and going ‘against the grain’ (Reay et al., 2013) or collectively campaigning for a brand-new public school, the urban middle class are demonstrating contemporary methods and movements to challenge the existing ways of conceptualizing middle-class choice.
