Information, Understanding, and Choice in the Chicago Public Schools

Although much has been written about school choice, little is known about the information disseminated to help families make choices, the ways that families actually use this information in practice, and, ultimately, the choices that they do or do not make as a result of their informational understanding and use. In this dissertation project, I use a mixed methods approach to explore both the variation in information gathering and decision making among families living in poor and working class neighborhoods served by the Chicago Public Schools, as well as the ways that schools and the district attempt to serve this population of choosers. I first provide a contextual overview of information dissemination and find that there is an informational divide between the families accessing choice information and both the dissemination process and the information itself. High readability levels and vague content limit the materials' accessibility and usefulness to families, while a lack of resource centralization requires information-seeking families to be knowledgeable about where and when information is disseminated. I then explicate the differences across parental narratives about school choice among an often-overlooked population---non-choosers. I find that the distinction between "choosers" and "non-choosers" made in previous literature provides little insight into the processes that result in a default or "non-choice." Drawing on families' inclination to choose, capacity for choice, and school preferences, I create a typology that elucidates how some parents who are labeled as non-choosers in other studies are actually actively engaging in the choice process and, further, how the choice process itself can lead researchers to classify those who perceive themselves to be choosers as non-choosers. Finally, I investigate information possession and use among choosing families. I find that the approaches families take to engage information range along a spectrum from shallow to deep engagement, with those in the middle drawing heavily on informational heuristics. Engagement influences the number, type, and quality of schools to which families apply. This dissertation project addresses the critical, but oft-ignored determinants of school choice behavior, providing a better understanding of the behaviors of choosers and the systemic aspects that influence them.