KENDRA BISCHOFF PhD Candidate in Sociology		Stanford University 450 Serra Mall, Building 120 Stanford, CA 94305-2047 kendrab1 (at) Stanford (dot) edu
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Current Projects
	My dissertation explores the effect of school context on a full range of academic and social outcomes. This study uses the random assignment of students to a desegregation program to assess the effect on minority children of attending a better-resourced and more diverse school. Previous research has primarily focused on the ways in which school environments can affect academic achievement, a reflection of the surging interest in test scores brought about by the accountability movement. Using a mixed-methods approach, I hope to bring high-quality evidence to bear on academic as well as social outcomes, such as students’ friendship patterns, connections to school and neighborhood, aspirations for the future, civic participation, and racial identity. I take a process-oriented approach in this research with the aim of identifying the mechanisms that drive the observable outcomes. Dissertation Committee: Sean Reardon (co-chair), Matt Snipp (co-chair), Doug McAdam, and Prudence Carter
	Civic Engagement Among Disadvantaged Youth: How does School Context Matter? With Doug McAdam; Funded by the Spencer Foundation In this project we focus on schools as a dominant institutional environment that likely affects youth civic engagement. More specifically, we seek to systematically assess the civic effects of school context on disadvantaged youth by focusing on two educational innovations—transfer programs and charter schools. In the first setting, we assess the civic effects of a school transfer program that allows minority students to attend a better-resourced and more diverse school. In the second phase, we will use case study methodology to compare the civic effects of four different charter schools in the San Francisco Bay Area that target the same general demographic as the transfer program. By examining these educational environments we hope to begin to identity the critical mechanisms that exacerbate or remedy existing inequalities in civic engagement.
	Reardon, S. and K. Bischoff. Income Inequality and Income Segregation. Under Review Both income inequality and income segregation in the United States grew substantially from 1970 to 2000. Using data from the 100 largest metropolitan areas, we investigate whether and how income inequality affects patterns of income segregation along three dimensions—the spatial concentration of poverty and affluence; race-specific patterns of income segregation; and the geographic scale of income segregation. We find a robust relationship between income inequality and income segregation, an effect that is larger for black families than for white families. In addition, income inequality affects income segregation primarily through its effect on the large-scale spatial concentration of affluence, rather than by affecting the spatial concentration of poverty or by altering small-scale patterns of income segregation.
	Bischoff, K. and S. Reardon. Segregation in Suburban Schools: Changing Demographics and School District Fragmentation. Under Review Despite the rapid increase in the race/ethnic diversity of suburban areas in recent years, relatively little is known about the causes and consequences of segregation in suburban schools. School district fragmentation, or the proliferation of autonomous districts in suburban areas, is one structural feature that likely affects racial and socioeconomic segregation because it leads to more differentiation in amenities across district boundaries. Using longitudinal data, this study shows that, on average, increases in minority and low-income enrollment lead to increases in each group’s segregation levels. Additionally, fragmentation exacerbates school segregation for Asian and Hispanics when these populations are increasing, but decreases segregation for blacks when the black population is increasing. The interaction between fragmentation and percent low-income students has no significant effect on poor-non-poor segregation.
Published Papers
2008	Bischoff, K. School District Fragmentation and Racial Residential Segregation: How do Boundaries Matter? Urban Affairs Review 44(2). (Paper available here) Fragmentation, or the proliferation of independent jurisdictions, is a key feature of the political structure in many metropolitan areas in the United States. This paper engages sorting theories to investigate racial segregation as one potential negative consequence of school district fragmentation in metropolitan areas. The main results suggest that fragmentation does increase multiracial segregation between districts. Using a decomposable segregation measure, I also find that fragmentation has a negative impact on segregation within districts and no significant effect on tract-level segregation. Additionally, the results suggest that the causes of segregation may differ for various race/ethnic groups. I argue here that segregation between political units may in fact be more appropriate than segregation between smaller units, such as census tracts, if one believes that the negative consequences of segregation stem from access to public goods.
2009	Reardon, S., C. Farrell, S. Matthews, D. O’Sullivan, K. Bischoff, and G. Firebaugh. Race and Space in the 1990s: Changes in the Geographic Scale of Racial Residential Segregation, 1990-2000. Social Science Research 38(1): 55-70. (Paper available here) We use newly developed methods of measuring spatial segregation across a range of spatial scales to assess changes in racial residential segregation patterns in the 100 largest U.S. metropolitan areas from 1990 to 2000. Our results point to three notable trends in segregation from 1990 to 2000: (1) Hispanic-white and Asian-white segregation levels increased at both micro- and macro-scales; (2) black-white segregation declined at a micro-scale, but was unchanged at a macro-scale; and (3) for all three racial groups and for almost all metropolitan areas, macro-scale segregation accounted for more of the total metropolitan area segregation in 2000 than in 1990. Our examination of the variation in these trends among the metropolitan areas suggests that Hispanic-white and Asian-white segregation changes have been driven largely by increases in macro-scale segregation resulting from the rapid growth of the Hispanic and Asian populations in central cities. The changes in black-white segregation, in contrast, appear to be driven by the continuation of a 30-year trend in declining micro-segregation, coupled with persistent and largely stable patterns of macro-segregation.
2008	Reardon, S., S. Matthews, D. O'Sullivan, B. Lee, G. Firebaugh, C. Farrell and K. Bischoff. The Geographic Scale of Metropolitan Racial Segregation. Demography 45(3): 1-26. (Paper available here) This article addresses an aspect of racial residential segregation that has been largely ignored in prior work: the issue of geographic scale. In some metropolitan areas, racial groups are segregated over large regions, with predominately white regions, predominately black regions, and so on, whereas in other areas, the separation of racial groups occurs over much shorter distances. Here we develop an approach—featuring the segregation profile and the corresponding macro/micro segregation ratio—that offers a scale-sensitive alternative to standard methodological practice for describing segregation. Using this approach, we measure and describe the geographic scale of racial segregation in the 40 largest U.S. metropolitan areas in 2000. We find considerable heterogeneity in the geographic scale of segregation patterns across both metropolitan areas and racial groups, a heterogeneity that is not evident using conventional "aspatial" segregation measures. Moreover, because the geographic scale of segregation is only modestly correlated with the level of segregation in our sample, we argue that geographic scale represents a distinct dimension of residential segregation. We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications of our findings for investigating the patterns, causes, and consequences of residential segregation at different geographic scales.
Book Chapters
2005	Hannaway, J. and K. Bischoff. “Philanthropy and Labor Market Reform in Education: The Case of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and Teach for America.” In With the Best of Intentions: How Philanthropy is Reshaping K-12 Education. Ed. Frederick M. Hess. Cambridge: Harvard Education Publishing Group. 157-176. This chapter focuses on the pace-setting role of philanthropy: efforts by philanthropies to influence public policy, specifically education policies. This influence has generally resulted from key philanthropic support for experimentation and innovation. Indeed, the involvement of philanthropy is becoming recognized as one of the distinguishing characteristics of the American education scene. We focus here on the role that philanthropy has played in recent years in structural reform in American education, namely in the structure of the labor market. We look at two major reform initiatives – the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), an effort to recognize and reward superior teaching of experienced K-12 educators, and Teach for America (TFA), a program designed to attract new quality entries into the profession. Our purpose here is not to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs, say, in terms of their contribution to student achievement, though there is encouraging evidence for both programs that we discuss later. Rather it is to tell their stories as philanthropically supported initiatives, and the ways in which they have successfully maneuvered within the complex structure of the American education system. They have not only facilitated and informed policy debates, but have also introduced new ways of maneuvering within the traditional teacher labor market.
2004	Hannaway, J. and K. Bischoff. 2004. “Florida: Confusion, Constraints, and Cascading Scenarios.” In Leaving No Child Behind? Options for Kids in Failing Schools. Eds. Frederick M. Hess and Chester E. Finn, Jr. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 89-111. This chapter examines the early experience of Florida in implementing the choice provisions of the landmark No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act. Students attending Title I schools deemed “in need of improvement” have options. Students in schools not making adequate progress for two consecutive years have the option of choosing a more successful public school in the district with transportation paid by the district. If schools do not make adequate progress for a third year, they are required to use Title I dollars to purchase supplemental educational services (SES)—tutoring—for their students using state-approved public or private providers. This chapter focuses on the early implementation of these two choice provisions in Florida, a front-runner in implementing both a statewide accountability system and a statewide choice program. Because Florida is further along these two learning curves, we might expect it to provide the best-case scenario for early implementation of the provisions of NCLB. Alternatively, we might expect the state’s experience to pose additional hurdles if the path the state has taken for accountability and choice does not map well onto the federal directives.