Intersectionality in Education: How Ties Among Race, Poverty, and Residential Stratification Affect Access to Education

Science Center A254

In an effort to address disparities in educational achievement amongst students of different demographics, extensive research has been conducted to examine the ways that race, poverty, and residential stratification can affect a student’s ability to access a quality education. However, the majority of that research focuses on the ways that each of these factors individually affects access, often failing to emphasize how the factors affect and perpetuate each other. My research suggests that race, poverty, and residential stratification do actively influence one another, often resulting in concentrations of poverty that disproportionately affect people of color, especially those who are Black. It is my hope that this research, in its future iterations, will help to critique existing access programs, administrative practices, and education legislation with the ultimate aim of tailoring those things better to the specific needs of students who are not being served by their public education systems.