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Research Article
Open Access

Civil Society Goes to School: Parent-Teacher Associations and the Equality of Educational Opportunity

Brittany Murray, Thurston Domina, Linda Renzulli, Rebecca Boylan
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences March 2019, 5 (3) 41-63; DOI: https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2019.5.3.03
Brittany Murray
aDoctoral student in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Thurston Domina
bAssociate professor of educational policy and sociology in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Linda Renzulli
cProfessor of sociology and department head in the College of Liberal Arts Department of Sociology at Purdue University
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Rebecca Boylan
dPostdoctoral researcher in the College of Liberal Arts Department of Sociology at Purdue University
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Abstract

Where do parent-teacher associations (PTAs) and other similar school-linked nonprofits form? What role do PTAs play in distributing educational opportunities between and within public schools? In this paper, we link IRS data describing nonprofit organizations associated with North Carolina public schools to school- and student-level administrative data in order to answer these questions. Our analyses suggest PTAs form in a wide variety of school contexts, but high-revenue PTAs form primarily in affluent, predominantly white schools. Students in schools with active PTAs enjoy relatively strong achievement growth compared to their peers in schools without active PTAs. However, our analyses suggest that in reading, the benefits associated with PTAs flow disproportionately to nonpoor students.

  • administrative data
  • civil society
  • PTAs
  • social capital
  • opportunity hoarding
  • © 2019 Russell Sage Foundation. Murray, Brittany, Thurston Domina, Linda Renzulli, and Rebecca Boylan. 2019. “Civil Society Goes to School: Parent-Teacher Associations and the Equality of Educational Opportunity.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 5(3): 41–63. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2019.5.3.03. We thank Cole D. Smith for his support in matching nonprofit and school administrative data. We also thank William L. Pryor IV for generating maps of PTAs across North Carolina’s elementary schools. This material is based in part on work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers SES-1626891. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Direct correspondence to: Brittany Murray at bcmurray{at}live.unc.edu, 122 Peabody Hall, CB# 3500, Chapel Hill, NC 27599; Thurston Domina at tdomina{at}email.unc.edu, 119 Peabody Hall, CB# 3500, Chapel Hill, NC 27599; Linda Renzulli at lrenzull{at}purdue.edu, 700 W. State St., West Lafayette, IN 47907; and Rebecca Boylan at rboylan{at}purdue.edu, 700 W. State St., West Lafayette, IN 47907.

Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences: 5 (3)
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
Vol. 5, Issue 3
1 Mar 2019
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Civil Society Goes to School: Parent-Teacher Associations and the Equality of Educational Opportunity
Brittany Murray, Thurston Domina, Linda Renzulli, Rebecca Boylan
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences Mar 2019, 5 (3) 41-63; DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2019.5.3.03

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Civil Society Goes to School: Parent-Teacher Associations and the Equality of Educational Opportunity
Brittany Murray, Thurston Domina, Linda Renzulli, Rebecca Boylan
RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences Mar 2019, 5 (3) 41-63; DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2019.5.3.03
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    • PARENT-TEACHER ASSOCIATIONS IN AMERICAN PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
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Keywords

  • administrative data
  • civil society
  • PTAs
  • social capital
  • opportunity hoarding

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