Date of Submission

Spring 2012

Academic Program

Sociology

Project Advisor 1

Allison McKim

Abstract/Artist's Statement

Within the last decade, Early College High Schools have expanded exponentially across the country and gained praise as exemplary school models by the media, politicians, educators, and scholars. ECHSs are commonly recognized and described as school models capable of helping disadvantaged students stay in school and become college-ready, often concealing their alternate use as a school model reserved for ‘high achieving’ students. This paper moves away from examining the ECHS movement as a unified effort to examine differences between the schools. Using discourse analysis, I demonstrate how the ECHS movement uses a school choice method in an effort to offer students better access to postsecondary education. However, as I argue, through differentiation, ECHSs actually reproduce social inequality by creating a system of ‘contest mobility’ that divides student populations into groups of the ‘gifted’ few and the ‘disadvantaged’ many.

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Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
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