ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS



Schools And The Construction Of The Local:



Place, Race, And Politics In Bergen County



by MELINA ANNIE PATTERSON



Thesis Director:



David A. Robinson







This thesis argues that the conception of schools as local institutions - ones best served by local control - contributes to the retreat of the state and society as a whole from issues of educational equity and desegregation by fragmenting collective interests, ignoring regional histories and emphasizing spatial community over other kinds of community. A current conflict over regionalizing several municipal school districts in Bergen County, New Jersey, in order to desegregate the predominantly Black and Latino Englewood school system provides a lens through which to understand how local and non-local actors invoke the local for specific political ends. Building on historical documents ? local census reports, town booster documents and newspaper articles, for example ? and contemporary ones ? more recent histories and articles, letters to the editor and interviews ? I have explored the relationships between municipalities and the roles of schools, race, and class in their formation.

The history of the area around Englewood reveals that the segregation within Englewood is the product of more "successful" discriminatory policies in neighboring localities and policies introduced at the state level, as well as those at the local level. The local, as an idea and an object, is produced by actors at multiple scales and in many places. The municipal fragmentation that characterizes the state masks the interconnections between the related histories and economies of these towns and encourages residents of other municipalities to describe the beleaguered and segregated school system in Englewood as entirely Englewood's fault and responsibility. The contemporary conflict illustrates the degree to which property values and residents' sense of community are tied to maintaining local control over not just the management of their schools, but over the racial composition of them.