Nice White Parents and the Phantom Public School

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Links to Files

https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1107&context=rdr

Permanent Link

http://hdl.handle.net/11603/24083

Collections

UMBC Media and Communication Studies
UMBC Faculty Collection

Author/Creator

Author/Creator ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5493-9097

Date

2021-12

Type of Work

journal articles
Text

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Loviglio, Jason. Nice White Parents and the Phantom Public School. RadioDoc Review 7 (2021) 1. https://ro.uow.edu.au/rdr/.

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This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.

Subjects

Serial
Podcasting
Nice White Parents
Public Education

Abstract

Serial Productions’ Nice White Parents tells the story of “an utterly ordinary, squat, three-story New York City public school building”, and the many schools it has housed over six decades; each one, it turns out, shaped in ironic and disastrous ways by white parents’ ambivalent desire for diversity. Like some earlier Serial efforts, this is a story on a theme: the failure of the American experiment in public, democratic institutions. Thanks to impressive archival research, candid interviews with a wide range of stakeholders, and a deftly delivered dose of Serial’s trademark reflexivity between the object of study and the reporter’s investment, what could have been a depressing dirge for democracy is instead a lively dialectic exploration of the difficulty and necessity of equitable public institutions.