“There Is No Perfect School”: The Complexity of School Decision‐Making Among Lesbian and Gay Adoptive Parents

• Date: 01 June 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12478
• Author: Katherine R. Allen,Reihonna L. Frost,Abbie E. Goldberg,Melissa H. Manley,Kaitlin A. Black
• Published date: 01 June 2018

A E. G Clark University

K R. A Virginia Tech∗

K A. B Salve Regina University∗∗

R L. F  M H. M Clark University∗∗∗

“There Is No Perfect School”: The Complexity

of School Decision-Making Among Lesbian

and Gay Adoptive Parents

Parents inuence their children’s educational

experiences in part via school selection. This

process is particularly complex for families

with multiple minority, potentially stigma-

tized, statuses. This qualitative study examines

middle-class lesbian and gay (LG) adoptive

parents’ school decision-making. Parents’ eco-

nomic resources provided the foundation for

how parents weighed child/family identities

(children’s race, LG-parent family structure,

child’s special needs) and school-related con-

cerns (e.g., academic rigor). For White gay

male-headed families in afuent urban com-

munities, nancial resources muted racial and

Department of Psychology, Clark University, 950 Main

Street, Worcester MA 01610 (agoldberg@clarku.edu).

∗Department of Human Development and Family Science,

Virginia Tech,295 W. Campus Drive,Blacksburg, VA

24061.

∗∗Department of Psychology, Salve Regina University,100

Ochre Point Avenue, Newport,RI 02840.

∗∗∗Department of Psychology, Clark University,950 Main

Street, Worcester MA 01610.

This article was edited by Corinne Reczek.

Key Words: adoption, LGBTQ, marginalized, multiracial,

parent involvement, school.

sexual orientation consciousness in favor of

competitive academic environments. Lesbian

mothers of modest economic means prioritized

racial diversity more centrally. Racial diversity

overrode gay-friendliness as a consideration in

lesbian-mother families; gay-friendliness was

prioritized over racial diversity among families

in conservative communities; and special needs

overrode all other child and family identity con-

siderations. For LG adoptive parent families,

school decision-making has the potential for

greater tensions amidst multiple intersecting

identities and fewer economic resources.

Families in contemporary U.S. society are

increasingly diverse and complex (Brodzinsky

& Pertman, 2011). The household norm of two

heterosexual parents with biological children

has been replaced by a wide array of family

arrangements in part because of changing social

and political landscapes (Lofquist, Lugaila,

O’Connell, & Feliz, 2012). In the United States,

lesbian and gay (LG) couples are increasingly

becoming parents and are at least four times as

likely as heterosexual couples to have adopted

children (Gates, 2013). Adoptive families are

often racially diverse: At least 40% of U.S.

adoptions are transracial (i.e., parents adopt

684 Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (June 2018): 684–703

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12478

School Decision-Making 685

children of a different race), and LG couples are

more likely than heterosexual couples to adopt

transracially (Brodzinsky & Pertman, 2011).

The unique combinations associated with sexual

minority status, adoption, and racial diversity

make these families vulnerable to multiple

forms of marginalization.

Despite such increases in family complexity,

U.S. society has continued to prize the stan-

dard North American family of a heterosexual

married couple parenting biologically related

children (Smith, 1993), which can lead to the

marginalization of families that deviate from

this family form (Allen & Jaramillo-Sierra,

2015). Societal systems (e.g., schools, the legal

system) have been slow to acknowledge and

adapt to changes in contemporary families.

Schools may reect the broader community

and cultural context in which they are situated,

thus perpetuating heteronormativity in policies

and curricula, which centralize the experience

of White, heterosexual, two-parent, biologi-

cally related families (Hopkins, Sorensen, &

Taylor, 2013). Alternatively, schools can also

actively disrupt and challenge heteronormativ-

ity, such as through their physical structures

(e.g., trans-inclusive restrooms) and curricular

and extracurricular offerings (e.g., lesbian, gay,

bisexual, transgender [LGBT] history month,

LGBT student groups; Russell, Day, Ioverno, &

Toomey, 2016). Aware of the potential for both

invisibility and scrutiny of their families within

the school context, LG adoptive parents may be

motivated to seek out schools they believe will

be afrming (Goldberg, 2014).

This qualitative study examines the school

decision-making of LG adoptive parents (pri-

marily White and middle class) with young

school-age children (mostly preschool or kinder-

garten age and of color) in the United States. We

attend to the vulnerabilities and assets that these

parents reveal as salient in their decision-making

and the tensions that emerge as they navigate and

juggle logistical, intersectional, and academic

complexities.

C F

Intersectionality holds that social identities such

as sexual orientation, gender, race, social class,

and nationality do not operate as distinct cate-

gories but are lived conjointly (Crenshaw, 1989;

Few-Demo, 2014; Veenstra, 2011). Parents’

identities and those of their children interact to

shape their experiences, opportunities, choices,

and challenges in relation to schools (Grant &

Zwier, 2012). By exploring the intersections of

families’ sexual minority, adoptive, and racial

statuses, we can illuminate the complexity of

lived experiences at the “crossroads” of these

identities and within the broader institutional

systems of oppression and privilege (Crenshaw,

1989). Although parents in this study hold

identities that are marginalized in U.S. society

at large (i.e., sexual minority identity, adoptive

family structure, multiracial family status), an

intersectional approach highlights how parental

social class, resulting from advantages linked to

education and wealth (and among men, gender),

also affords privileges that may shape their

experiences in their communities and when nav-

igating schools (Grant & Zwier, 2012). Parents

with greater education are more likely to select

private or alternative public schools (Goyette,

2014; Pugh, 2009) in that education level is an

indicator of the value they place on education

(Ogawa & Dutton, 1997), but also because edu-

cation provides parents with access to networks

of information, which shape knowledge and

choice of schools (Goyette & Lareau, 2014).

LG parents’ middle-class status may impact the

types of schools they can access, such as by

affording them greater power to seek out “pro-

gressive” schools that will be positively inclined

toward their family structure, and leading them

to emphasize academic quality.

P’ S D-M

 S

One of the most important ways in which

parents are involved in children’s education

is through their choice of schools (Davies &

Aurini, 2011)—although, notably, research on

parents’ school selection typically examines

mothers only or does not explore how parent

gender relates to school decision-making except

to indicate that mothers in heterosexual couples

typically have the “nal say” (David, 2005) and

may tend to value diversity in school settings

more than fathers (Parcel, Hendrix, & Tay-

lor, 2016). Historically, parents have chosen a

school de facto, based on where they live (most

children went to their neighborhood schools;

Carpenter & Kafer, 2012). During the past few

decades, parents have increasingly had greater

choice in what school their child attends in

part because of specic educational policies