Abstract:
This study aims to shed light on how the spatiality of large-scale school fundraising differs according to school locations in unequal and segregated cities, putting a greater burden on schools in under-resourced areas. In particular, we compare the large-scale fundraising campaigns of two high schools in contrastingly unequal urban neighbourhoods in one of Canada’s prairie provinces. We compare two high schools located within two kilometres of each other, yet in strikingly different urban neighbourhoods by socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic characteristics.
Through the lens of critical policy geography, we examine the importance of space in understanding educational practice and policy of school fundraising. Critical policy geography is an emerging theoretical lens through which to conduct critical policy research spatially, drawing on the work of Gulson (2007), Gulson et al. (2023), Lefebvre (1991), Massey (2005), and Soja (2010). Following, we apply critical space analysis (Yoon, 2024) to compare the two fundraising schools’ respective communities, actors, strategies, and discourses, as well as the amount of time each school spent raising an extraordinary amount of funds.
We define and analyze the three types of communities at three different scales, namely, surrounding, choice, and supporting communities. Our analysis indicates that the unequal wealth levels of school communities at various scales lead to inherently uneven processes of school fundraising, placing a greater burden on low-resourced schools and contributing to symbolic and spatial violence. We conclude by discussing how these school fundraising inequities constitute new structural inequities, symbolic domination (Bourdieu, 1999), and spatial violence.
Through the lens of critical policy geography, we examine the importance of space in understanding educational practice and policy of school fundraising. Critical policy geography is an emerging theoretical lens through which to conduct critical policy research spatially, drawing on the work of Gulson (2007), Gulson et al. (2023), Lefebvre (1991), Massey (2005), and Soja (2010). Following, we apply critical space analysis (Yoon, 2024) to compare the two fundraising schools’ respective communities, actors, strategies, and discourses, as well as the amount of time each school spent raising an extraordinary amount of funds.
We define and analyze the three types of communities at three different scales, namely, surrounding, choice, and supporting communities. Our analysis indicates that the unequal wealth levels of school communities at various scales lead to inherently uneven processes of school fundraising, placing a greater burden on low-resourced schools and contributing to symbolic and spatial violence. We conclude by discussing how these school fundraising inequities constitute new structural inequities, symbolic domination (Bourdieu, 1999), and spatial violence.