PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Owens, Ann
AU  - Rich, Peter
TI  - Little Boxes All the Same? Racial-Ethnic Segregation and Educational Inequality Across the Urban-Suburban Divide
AID  - 10.7758/RSF.2023.9.2.02
DP  - 2023 Feb 01
TA  - RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences
PG  - 26--54
VI  - 9
IP  - 2
4099  - http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/9/2/26.short
4100  - http://www.rsfjournal.org/content/9/2/26.full
AB  - Suburbs were once a haven for advantaged, White families to avoid city life and access high-status schools. This urban-suburban divide, however, has changed in recent decades as suburban communities (and their school districts) have diversified. This study provides an updated cross-sectional portrait of recent racial-ethnic segregation and inequality between and within urban and suburban school districts in U.S. metropolitan areas. We find that the urban-suburban divide remains an important stratifying force—a substantial portion of racial-ethnic residential and school segregation, as well as racial-ethnic inequality in school poverty and test scores, occurs between urban and suburban school districts. Significant segregation and inequality also occur between and within suburban school districts. Suburban stratification is a key feature of the geography of inequality, warranting theoretical and methodological attention.