Disentangling the Threat: Experimental Evidence on White Parents’ Racialized Perceptions of Multiple Dimensions of School Safety

Abstract

Parents cite concerns about safety when making school-choice decisions; however, conceptions of school safety are both ambiguous and racialized. This research provides experimental evidence on the effect of school racial composition on parents’ perceptions of multiple dimensions of safety: socioemotional, violence, biological, and school order. Using a survey experiment in which respondents examine hypothetical school profiles with randomly varied school characteristics such as demographics and school quality, the authors find that White parents overall, across income and political spectra, and with differing endorsements of racial stereotypes, rate schools with predominantly Black, Latine, and Asian populations as socioemotionally unsafe, predominantly Black and Latine schools as violent and disorderly, and predominantly Black schools as biologically hazardous. The results illuminate how these racialized perceptions of multiple dimensions of school safety reinforce stigmatizing narratives of racialized schools that serve to exacerbate school segregation and the uneven distribution of educational resources across schools.

Keywords

survey experiment school choice school safety racism race-based perceptions

Three quarters of U.S. schoolchildren attend racially isolated schools in which their own racial groups are overrepresented (Owens 2020). This demographic imbalance is pronounced for Black and Latine students, who frequently attend schools where a majority of students are also economically disadvantaged (Owens 2020). These conditions are partially driven by White parents’ preferences for predominantly White schools and avoidance of schools and neighborhoods with high proportions of Black, Latine, and Asian students (Lareau 2014). Subsequently, the resources associated with White families are drawn away from diverse traditional public schools and instead invested into predominantly White school districts and private, charter, and magnet schools (Saporito 2003). This disparate resources allocation across segregated racial-economic contexts exacerbates racial inequality in educational achievement, attainment, and a host of employment, health, and social outcomes (Johnson 2019; Reardon et al. 2022). Through concentrating social and economic advantage within White enclaves, White parents’ school choices shape the allocation of educational resources and learning opportunities across schools.

White parents often cite safety as a key factor for their school preferences (NCES 2024); however, their perceptions of potential schools’ safety are both ambiguous and racialized. Qualitative research suggests that White parents draw on stereotypes of Black and Latine violence and use concerns with “safety” and “belonging” as justification to avoid minority schools (Evans 2024; Holme 2002; Kafka 2022). Recent quantitative studies have addressed this question by employing survey experiments to explore the effect of school racial composition on families’ anticipated safety in schools. These studies find that, among otherwise similar schools, White parents use the proportion of Black and Latine students to signal school safety (Billingham et al. 2020; Hailey 2025b; Mellon and Siegler 2023). However, these studies did not simultaneously manipulate the proportion of White, Black, Latine, and Asian students. Additionally, they do not differentiate among the multiple dimensions of safety—such as socioemotional climate, physical violence, and biological protections—that have grown ever more pressing in contemporary conversations about school shootings, mental well-being, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (Hailey 2025a; Hailey et al. 2023). As such, we have little evidence on the dynamic effects of all four major student racial groups on White parents’ perceptions of various elements of school safety.

The aim of this study is to improve our understanding of White parents’ racialized perceptions of safety that contribute to their avoidance of diverse schools. To that end, this survey experiment examines White parents’ perceptions of multiple dimensions of school safety as they assess schools with experimentally varied racial and socioeconomic demographics and quality ratings. In doing so, we shed light on how race affects perceptions of school socioemotional, physical and biological safety and school order. The following research questions guide our analysis:

a. How does school racial composition affect White parents’ perceptions of multiple dimensions of school safety, accounting for school poverty and quality?

b. To what extent does the effect of school racial composition on White parents’ perceptions of multiple dimensions of safety vary across parents with differing endorsements of pro-White sentiments and anti-Black, anti-Latine, and Asian model minority stereotypes?

c. To what extent does the effect of school racial composition on White parents’ perceptions of multiple dimensions of safety vary across parents’ income and political orientation?

We find that, holding constant school quality grades, school poverty levels, and a host of individual characteristics, school racial composition affects White parents’ perceptions across all dimensions of school safety. Reflecting U.S. racial hierarchies, White parents rated predominantly White schools as the safest, followed by Asian schools, then Latine and Black schools across student and parent social-emotional safety, physical violence, and school order. Although White parents across racial attitudes, income, and political affiliations express race-based perceptions of school safety, these racialized beliefs were more pronounced for those with stronger pro-White sentiments, stronger racial stereotype endorsements, the economic elite, and Republicans. Our findings highlight the entrenchment of racial bias in assessments of physical spaces and demonstrate the limitations of school choice policies as tools to racially desegregate schools.

Whiteness Drives White Parents’ School Choices

Whiteness refers to the organization of society that places a premium “structural value” (Leonardo 2009:82) on White skin, by bestowing social, economic, and political privileges on those who identify as White (Harris 1993; Omi and Winant 2014). Whiteness has origins in the exploitation and degradation of Black people during the expansion of chattel slavery and the genocidal conquest of indigenous people, which set the foundation for contemporary global White economic hegemony (Omi and Winant 2014). White parents draw on Whiteness when engaging in education, resulting in racial disparities in advanced-course placements, discipline, and access to well-resourced schools and in school segregation (Ladson-Billings 2006).

A growing body of literature demonstrates that White parents actively work to ensure intergenerational privilege, by securing and maintaining educational advantages for their children (Calarco 2018; Lewis and Diamond 2015). Specifically, White parents leverage structures and policies to sequester educational resources within segregated White networks, while excluding Asian, Latine, and Black families from full access (Murray and Hailey 2024). School segregation exemplifies this phenomenon. Historically, White parents concentrated in predominantly White schools by using their economic power to buy higher priced homes in White communities, benefiting from exclusionary covenants that prevented other racial groups from owning property, and taking advantage of educational policies that assigned students to local neighborhood schools (Goyette 2014). Following the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, White parents resisted court-ordered desegregation by boycotting public schools and mass exiting to private schools (Goyette 2014). Efforts to desegregate schools have since weakened and the contemporary neoliberal school choice era makes it easier for White parents to avoid diverse schools.

Over the past three decades, the educational privatization movement expanded school choice policies that decouple the link between neighborhood and school selection. School choice proponents elevate these policies as tools for achieving racial equity, arguing that they weaken the tether between residential and school segregation while empowering racially marginalized families to opt out of lower performing schools and choose higher quality options (Forster 2006). In reality, communities with more school choice options experience higher levels of racial segregation (Monarrez, Kisida, and Chingos 2022). Charter schools are often less racially and economically diverse than traditional public schools (Bifulco, Ladd, and Ross 2009; Renzulli and Evans 2005; Rich, Candipan, and Owens 2021). White parents leverage school choice policies to avoid racially diverse schools and districts (Denice and Gross 2016; Hailey 2022b; Saporito and Lareau 1999).

Whiteness affords White schools valued status and White parents the right to exclude (Harris 1993). In the school choice landscape, the value placed on whiteness particularly undergirds White parents’ dysmorphic perceptions of school quality and contributes to school-choice decisions that reinforce racial hierarchies and inequality in education. White parents often use school racial composition as a signal for anticipated schooling experiences, when assessing potential school options (Evans 2024; Hailey 2022a, 2025b). They also circulate racialized narratives through their networks that valorize White schools as the only viable options in their local communities (Bader, Lareau, and Evans 2019; Holme 2002; Sattin-Bajaj and Roda 2020). Motivated by these beliefs, White parents consistently prefer predominantly White schools at the expense of majority-Black, majority-Latine, and majority-Asian options with higher academic outcomes and safety (Billingham and Hunt 2016; Hailey 2022b; Saporito and Lareau 1999).

White parents take concerted effort to secure admissions to these coveted, predominantly White schools by paying for admissions test prep programs and leveraging favors from networks (Roda and Sattin-Bajaj 2024). Once enrolled, White parents reinforce the notions of White schools as inherently high-quality and resourced through hoarding educational opportunities and excluding others from access. They fundraise for teacher professional development programs, specialized academic programs, tutors, and instructional equipment (Murray 2019) and advocate for continued exclusionary admissions policies (i.e., test- and grade-based admissions) (Roda and Sattin-Bajaj 2024). Whiteness affords predominantly White schools with a self-perpetuating reputation of high status (Evans 2024; Saporito and Lareau 1999).

One channel through which these status beliefs persist in school choice processes is through White parents amplifying narratives that conflate school racial composition with school safety. Families identify safety as a main priority in their education selections, with 70 percent of parents listing safety as very important to their most recent school choice (NCES 2024) Although central to their school choices, families rarely have encyclopedic knowledge of potential schools’ safety levels (Billingham, Kimelberg, and Hunt 2024; Hamlin 2020). They may instead use heuristics, or easily gathered cues, to anticipate school safety. Qualitative studies suggests that White parents often form perceptions of potential schools’ safety by drawing on stereotypes of Black and Latine people as disorderly and violent and Asian people as difficult to get along with (Evans 2024; Holme 2002; Warikoo 2022). White parents often use coded language to insinuate that schools with larger non-White populations are socially isolating; schools with larger Black and Latine student populations are chaotic and dangerous; and, by contrast, majority-White schools are inherently welcoming, orderly, and offer a low risk for violence (Holme 2002)

To better understand White parents’ race-based narratives of safety, scholars draw on survey experiments to assess how school racial composition influence families’ safety perceptions (Billingham et al. 2020; Hailey 2025b; Mellon and Siegler 2023). Parents provide their opinions of hypothetical schools in these studies. By experimentally varying student racial compositions, academic outcomes, and other characteristics across the schools, researchers isolate the effect of race on parents’ school safety beliefs. Across these studies, school racial composition influenced White parents’ perceptions of school safety. They believed that majority-Black and majority-Latine schools would be less safe than otherwise similar majority-White schools (Billingham et al. 2020; Hailey 2025b; Mellon and Siegler 2023). White parents also anticipated that they and their children would have less supportive relationships in schools with larger proportions of Black and Asian students (Mellon and Siegler 2023).

Although these experiments provide important insights into parents’ racialized perceptions of school safety, because they isolate perceptions about schools’ general “safety,” we have little understanding of whether White parents’ race-based perceptions differ across multiple dimensions of school safety (i.e., school physical violence, socioemotional support, biological threats). Families may differentially call on racial demographics to signal different forms of safety. For example, White parents may draw on stereotypes about Black and Latine proclivity to violence and presume that schools with larger Black and Latine populations are more violent, while they draw on stereotypes about Latine and Asian people as perpetual foreigners to predict that their student may not be socioemotionally supported in school (Hailey 2025b; Mellon and Siegler 2023).

Multiple Dimensions of School Safety

Social discourse and researchers often refer to school safety as a ubiquitous term; however, there is no universal definition. School safety is a multidimensional concept that implies protection from various risks to students, staff members, and other school members (Cornell, Mayer, and Sulkowski 2021; Edwards 2021; Federal Commission on School Safety 2022; Thapa et al. 2013).

Drawing on theoretical conceptualizations from the school climate literature as well as parents’ conceptualizations of safety when describing their school choices, Hailey (2025a) highlights three dimensions of school safety that could underlie schooling decisions (Billingham et al. 2024; Butler and Quarles 2024; Hamlin 2020; Holme 2002). These include (1) physical violence within and surrounding schools (i.e., shootings, fights, and weapons), (2) promotion of students’ socioemotional well-being (i.e., supportive, welcoming, and caring relationships between school community members), and (3) school order (i.e., rule enforcement, discipline). Extending from Hailey (2025a), the COVID-19 pandemic also reinforced the importance of biological safety in schools (Szabo 2021). Although always an element of school environments, students’ protection from infectious diseases moved to the forefront of parental and social school safety concerns in 2020 (Calarco and Anderson 2021; Federal Commission on School Safety 2022; Hailey et al. 2023).

Not only are there conceptually at least four dimensions of school safety, but families’ school preferences also have unique associations with each safety element. Quantitative studies demonstrate that, when choosing to attend or transfer from schools, families typically avoid schools with higher levels of school and neighborhood physical violence (Burdick-Will, Gebo, and Williams 2023; Burdick-Will et al. 2021; Denice and Gross 2016). Notably, Hailey (2025a) found that families’ school choices simultaneously associate with multiple dimensions of safety. Accounting for school academics, demographics, and geography, New York City families were less likely to apply to schools with higher school and neighborhood violence and lower socioemotional support (Hailey 2025a).

Using a survey experiment fielded during the COVID-19 pandemic, we find that parents also have distinct perceptions of and preferences for potential schools’ socioemotional security, physical violence, and biological safety (Hailey and Murray 2025). That is parents’ beliefs that students would make friends, feel welcome, and be socioemotionally supported at school had weak relationships with their beliefs about schools’ physical violence and students’ potential infectious disease contagion. Furthermore, accounting for parents’ perceptions of multiple elements of school safety and schools’ demographics and academics, parents were less willing to attend schools that they believed would have lower socioemotional and biological safety. For each standard deviation increase in parents’ beliefs that students would contract COVID-19 at a school, the likelihood of enrolling their child in that school decreased by four percentage points. Notably, the influence of anticipated biological safety on school preference was approximately half as strong as the impact of anticipated socioemotional support on school attendance decisions. Relatedly, schools’ COVID-19 mitigation policies (i.e., face mask mandates) also shaped parents’ school preferences (Hailey et al. 2023).

There are several important limitations to understanding how school racial composition affects perceptions of school safety. First, the prior studies focus on perceptions of elementary and high schools, leaving little knowledge of whether families hold similar beliefs about middle schools. Parents may be particularly susceptible to use race as a signal for middle school safety, given students vulnerability to peer influences and increased independence in this phase of adolescence (Kafka 2022). Second, these studies did not consider whether White parents’ proclivity for expressing race-based anticipation of school safety varies across respondents’ background characteristics (i.e., racialized attitudes, socioeconomic status; see Hailey 2025b for an exception). Third, none of these studies simultaneously varied the proportion of White, Latine, Asian, and Black students enrolled in the hypothetical schools. Consequently, we do not understand White parents’ relative hierarchy of racialized perceptions of school safety, between the major four racial/ethnic groups who occupy U.S. schools. Finally, these studies did not examine the effect of racial demographics on White parents’ perceptions of multiple elements of safety.

Our study seeks to fill these gaps by examining White parents across income brackets, political orientations and racial beliefs and assessing how school racial composition affects their perceptions of multiple elements of safety (i.e., social-emotional support, physical safety, biological safety, school order). To that end, we propose the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: School racial compositions will affect White respondents’ perceptions of multiple dimensions of school safety. These racialized perceptions will be hierarchical, with respondents believing that White schools are the safest, followed by Asian schools, then Latine schools, and last Black schools.

Hypothesis 2: School racial compositions will have a greater effect on perceptions of multiple dimensions of safety among White parents who hold stronger explicit personal racial biases and those who endorse racial stereotypes.

Hypothesis 3: School racial compositions will have a greater effect on perceptions of multiple dimensions of safety among Republican and higher income White parents.

Methods

Design, Procedure, and Materials

To examine these research questions, we conducted a survey experiment with parents in August 2021. Parents reviewed hypothetical school profiles, indicated their perceptions of the schools, and provided demographic background information. To explore parents’ perceptions of schools when school choice and biological health were particularly salient, we fielded the survey at the height of the Delta COVID-19 variant and the beginning of the academic year. For more on survey design and methodology, see Hailey et al. (2023).

We recruited parents through Amazon Mechanical Turk, obtaining 476 valid responses. Given that the sample was 67 percent White, we restrict our sample to 369 White respondents.¹ Half of respondents were women. Most respondents were employed (96 percent), half earned more than $60,000, and 80 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher. One third identified as Republicans. See Table 1. We used multiple imputation to impute missing data.

Table 1.

Respondent Background Characteristics (n = 369).

Characteristic	Percentage
Respondent gender
Male	46.29
Female	53.71
Respondent employment status
Employed	95.66
Not working	4.33
Respondent household income
<$39,999	20.59
$40,000–$59,999	31.43
$60,000–$79,999	23.84
≥$80,000	24.41
Respondent education level
Less than high school degree	0.54
High school or equivalent	5.96
Some college or associate’s degree	17.61
Bachelor’s degree	59.89
Master’s or professional degree	15.98
Respondent political orientation
Republican, or lean Republican	38.48
Democrat, or lean Democrat	60.97
Independent, something else	0.54
Has child currently <18 years of age	88.62
Residential region
Northeast	18.27
Midwest	20.86
South	39.87
West	21.00
Residential urbanicity
Urban	75.77
Suburban	10.13
Rural	14.10

Source: School Choice and COVID Survey Experiment, 2021.

At the beginning of the survey, participants read instructions that asked for their opinion of potential schools for their child. To hold constant factors that typically influence school preferences (Harris and Larsen 2023), survey instructions explained that all schools in the survey were similar size, did not require uniforms, were within a 20-minute ride from respondents’ homes, and offered many school programs and sports.

Respondents evaluated eight school profiles. To estimate the effect of each school characteristic on respondents’ beliefs, we randomly varied seven school characteristics across the profiles in a factorial design (4 × 2 × 3 × 3 × 2 × 2 × 2). The profiles indicated schools’ racial composition (majority White, Black, Latine, and Asian), student poverty levels (24 percent and 63 percent), and school quality scores (A, B, and C), along with schools’ COVID-19 mitigation policies. See Table 2 for levels of each school characteristic and Online Appendix A for further descriptions.

Table 2.

Experimentally Varied School Characteristics on School Profiles.

School Characteristics	Levels
School racial demographics		Majority Latine	Majority Black	Majority White	Majority Asian
	Asian	3%	2%	2%	62%
	Black	8%	75%	5%	4%
	Latine	74%	11%	10%	13%
	White	11%	9%	78%	13%
School poverty	63% of students from low-income families
School poverty	24%
School quality score	A
	B
	C
Instruction mode	In person
	Remote/virtual only
	Hybrid
Mask/face cover	Mandated
Mask/face cover	Optional
COVID-19 vaccine	Mandated
COVID-19 vaccine	Optional
Student COVID-19 weekly testing	Mandated
Student COVID-19 weekly testing	Optional

Note: The student racial demographics for the majority-Latine, majority-Black, majority-White, and majority-Asian schools represent the demographics of all public schools in that category in the 2017 academic year. COVID-19 = coronavirus disease 2019.

Measures

After evaluating each profile, respondents answered how likely it is that their student would feel socially and emotionally supported, make friends, be welcome, be subject to physical violence, and be infected with COVID-19, and how likely it is that the school would consistently implement their COVID-19 mitigation policies. See Table 3 for exact question wording and descriptive statistics. Figure 1 also includes plots illustrating the distribution of each outcome variable. These questions are variations of survey questions used by Billingham et al. (2020), Hailey (2025b), and Mellon and Siegler (2023).

Table 3.

Respondents’ Perceptions of Schools.

Safety Dimension	Variable	Survey Question	Mean	SD	Minimum	25th Percentile	Median	75th Percentile	Maximum
Student socioemotional safety	Social and emotional support	How likely is it that your student would feel socially and emotionally supported in this school?	4.99	1.58	1	4	5	6	7
	Friends	How likely is it that your student would make friends in this school?	5.11	1.49	1	4	5	6	7
	Welcome	In general, how welcome do you think your student would feel in this school?	5.09	1.53	1	4	5	6	7
Parent socioemotional safety	Parental support	How likely is it that you would reach out to other parents for help or information in this school?	4.80	1.70	1	4	5	6	7
Student physical	Physical violence	How likely is it that your student would be subject to physical violence in this school?	3.75	1.90	1	2	4	5	7
Student biological	Catching COVID-19	How likely is it that your student would test positive for COVID-19 if they attended this school?	4.22	1.82	1	3	4	6	7
School order	Consistent COVID-19 protocols	How confident are you that this school would consistently implement these COVID-19 protocols?	5.15	1.57	1	4	5	6	7

Source: School Choice and COVID Survey Experiment, 2021.

Note: Number of observations = 2,952; number of respondents = 369. School perception scales range from 1 (“very unlikely” or “not at all confident”) to 7 (“very likely” or “very confident”).

Figure 1.

Distribution of respondents’ perceptions of schools.

Student Socioemotional Security

Participants rated the likelihood that students would feel supported in school across three dimensions—social and emotional support, make friends, and feel welcome—on 7-point scales (1 = “very unlikely” to 7 = “very likely”). They believed that schools would be somewhat supportive for students (M = 5.0 on a 7-point scale, SD = 1.5) As detailed later, we use these individual measures to create a student socioemotional support factor (α = .87).

Parent Support

Participants rated the likelihood of reaching out to other parents for help or information (M = 4.8 on a 7-point scale, SD = 1.7).

Student Physical Violence

Participants indicated how likely they believed their student would be subject to physical violence in the school (M = 3.8 on a 7-point scale, SD = 1.9).

Student Biological Safety

To capture parents’ beliefs about students’ potential vulnerability to infectious disease, participants indicted whether students would test positive for COVID-19 if they attended the school (M = 4.2 on a 7-point scale, SD = 1.8).

School Order

Parents also indicated their confidence in schools’ ability to consistently implement COVID-19 mitigation protocols on a scale from 1 = “not at all confident” to 7 = “very confident” (M = 5.2, SD = 1.6). We conceptualize this measure as an indicator of trust in schools’ order and consistent rule implement and enforcement (see Thapa et al. 2013).

Hailey and Murray (2025) found that parents’ perceptions of student socioemotional safety, friendships, and welcomeness coalesce into one factor that they refer to as student socioemotional support (all elements loading at >.78, eigenvalue = 1.95, Cronbach’s α = .87). Furthermore, parents’ perceptions of students’ socioemotional security differ from their confidence in schools’ capacity to keep students safe from violence and infectious diseases.

Measures of Respondent Racial Sentiment and Endorsements of Cultural Stereotypes

To examine whether respondents’ racial attitudes moderated the effect of school racial composition on respondents’ perceptions of school safety, we measured respondents’ racial sentiment toward outgroups and their endorsement of racial stereotypes.

We calculated respondents’ pro-White sentiments. Using visual analog scales and question wording from the American National Election Studies, respondents reported how they felt about four racial groups (Latine, White, Black, and Asian) on a line from cool (0) to warm (100). Examining the differences in respondents’ feelings toward their in-group and racial out-groups, respondents felt more negatively toward Asian, Latine, and Black people than White people (see TableA1, Panel 1; M_{BiasTowardAsianPeople} = 11, SD = 22; M_{BiasTowardLatinePeople} = 14, SD = 24; M_{BiasTowardBlackPeople} = 15, SD = 27). We used these measures of respondents’ feelings toward the three outgroups to calculate a pro-White sentiment scale (α = .90; see Table A1 for factor loadings).

We also assessed respondents’ endorsement of racial stereotypes. Respondents indicated White, Asian, Latine, and Black people’s tendency to exhibit five different traits from 0 to 100: peaceful-violent, hardworking-lazy, intelligent-unintelligent, easy to get along with–hard to get along with, and patriotic-unpatriotic. We used these scores to calculate respondents’ beliefs about Black, Latine, and Asian people relative to their beliefs about White people; see Table A1. We conducted three separate factor analyses with respondents’ perceptions of Black people’s, Latine people’s, and Asian people’s typical characteristics (see Table A1 for factor loadings). The anti-Black stereotypes scale (α = .81) measured respondents’ expressed beliefs that that Black people are more lazy, hard to get along with, unintelligent, unpatriotic, and violent than White people. The anti-Latine stereotypes scale (α = .74) measured respondents’ expressed beliefs that Latine people are more lazy, hard to get along with, unintelligent, and violent than White people. The anti-Asian stereotypes scale (α = .76) measured respondents’ expressed beliefs that Asian people are more lazy, unintelligent, and violent than White people. We reversed this anti-Asian stereotypes scale to correspond with the model minority Asian cultural stereotype that frames Asian people as more hardworking, intelligent, and peaceful than White people (Lee, Wong, and Alvarez 2009).

Analytic Strategy

The systematic variation in the school profiles displayed to parents and the experimental randomization in the school characteristics on school profiles allowed us to estimate each school characteristics’ causal effect on White parents’ perceptions of school safety. As school profiles were nested within respondents, we used respondent-level hierarchical linear random-effect models to analyze these relationships. First-level predictors varied randomly across school profiles: racial demographics, student poverty levels, quality scores, and COVID-19 mitigation protocols. Second-level predictors (gender, income, educational attainment, and political orientation) were fixed within respondents.

For the first set of analyses, we examined the influence of school demographics and quality scores on respondents’ perceptions of school socioemotional security, violence, and biological safety and school safety (School Safety Element_ij). We estimated each School Safety Element_ij as a function of school profile characteristics and a vector of respondent-level predictors (Z), where i is an index for single school profiles, j is an index for each respondent, n_d is the number of school profiles per respondent, and n_r is the number of respondents. The error term was decomposed into respondent-level and vignette-level variation.

\begin{array}{l} {Perception of School Safety Element}_{i j} = β_{0} + β_{1 j} {Racial Demographics}_{i j} + β_{2 j} {Student Poverty Level}_{i j} + \\ β_{3 j} {Quality Score}_{i j} + β_{4 j} {Instruction Modality}_{i j} + β_{5 j} {COVID-19 Testing Mandate}_{i j} + \\ β_{6 j} {COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate}_{i j} + β_{7 j} {Face Mask Mandate}_{i j} + γ_{1} Z_{j 1} + ... + γ_{q} Z_{j q} + u_{0 j} + e_{i j}, \end{array}

(1)

where i = 1, . . ., n_d, and j = 1, . . ., n_r.

To assess whether respondent characteristics moderated the relationship between school racial composition and perceptions of school safety, we extended model 1 by interacting school racial composition and a respondent-level characteristic. We examined moderation by respondent income; political orientation; and racial attitudes (pro-White sentiment; endorsement of anti-Black, anti-Latine, and model minority stereotypes).

\begin{array}{l} {Perception of School Safety Element}_{i j} = β_{0} + γ_{1} {Respondent Characteristic}_{j} + β_{1 j} {Racial Demographics}_{i j} + \\ β_{2 j} {Student Poverty Level}_{i j} + β_{3 j} {Quality Score}_{i j} + β_{4 j} {Instruction Modality}_{i j} + \\ β_{5 j} {COVID-19 Testing Mandate}_{i j} + β_{6 j} {COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate}_{i j} + β_{7 j} {Face Mask Mandate}_{i j} + \\ β_{8 j} {Racial Demographics}_{i j} \times {Respondent Characteristic}_{j} + γ_{2} Z_{j 2} + ... + γ_{q} Z_{j q} + u_{0 j} + e_{i j}, \end{array}

(2)

where i = 1, . . ., n_d, and j = 1, . . ., n_r.

To confirm robustness, we examined t tests of mean school safety perceptions by each characteristic and multilevel logistic regressions assessing respondents’ low/high school safety perceptions. Results from unadjusted means and t tests in Table A2 and the alternative outcome model in Figures A1 and A2 show substantively similar results to main findings. See Online Appendix A and Hailey et al. (2023) for more details on survey design, sample, and analytical models.

Results

Accounting for school poverty and quality, school racial composition shapes White parents’ perceptions of multiple elements of school safety. Figure 2 displays results from the random-effects regression models predicting respondents’ perceptions of school socioemotional support, violence, biological safety, and order by the characteristics displayed in the school profiles. The regression models control for school poverty level, quality grades, instruction modality, and COVID-19 mitigation protocols as well as respondent gender, household income, education level, political orientation, and geographic location. The school safety perceptions are in standard deviation units. Figure 3 illustrates the marginal mean perceptions of school characteristics by school racial composition, derived from the previously described random-effects model.

Figure 2.

Coefficients from hierarchical linear modeling regression predicting respondents’ perceptions of multiple elements of school safety.

Figure 3.

Marginal mean perceptions of multiple elements of school safety by school racial composition.

Racialized Perceptions of School Safety

Controlling for school quality and poverty, White parents anticipated lower socioemotional support for students and parents in Asian schools than White schools. Columns A and B in Figures 2 and 3 show that parents rated the Asian school .28 standard deviations below the White school in student socioemotional support and .13 standard deviations below the White school in their likelihood of reaching out to other parents for support.

White parents also believed the Latine school would be less socioemotionally and physically safe and offer less consistent public health policies than the White and Asian schools. White parents anticipated that students would be less socioemotionally supported in the Latine school than in White and Asian schools (see Figure 3, column A; difference between Latine and White school = −.37, difference between Latine and Asian school = −.09) and that parents would receive less support in the Latine school than the White school (see Figure 3, column B; b = −.16). Figure 3, column C, also shows that White parents rated the Latine school .15 and .17 standard deviations above the White and Asian schools in potential physical violence. Finally, parents believed that Latine schools would be less likely than White and Asian schools to embody consistent rule enforcement (Figure 3, column E; b = −.09, b = −.08).

White parents believed that Black schools would be most threatening to their students in terms of socioemotional, parental support, physical violence, and biological safety (see Figure 3). Among schools with otherwise similar poverty level, quality ratings, and COVID-19 mitigation protocols, White parents rated Black schools .46, .18, and .09 standard deviations below the White, Asian, and Latine schools in student socioemotional support and .23, .10, and .07 standard deviations below these schools in parental support. White parents also believed that students would experience the most violence in Black schools, rating the potential for physical violence in the Black school a quarter standard deviation higher than White and Asian schools and .11 standard deviations higher than the Latine school. Furthermore, White parents believed that students’ likelihood of catching COVID-19 at school was .09 standard deviations higher at Black schools than Asian schools. White parents’ confidence that the Black schools had the institutional capacity to enforce the rules with fidelity were also about .09 standard deviations below the White and Asian schools.

Importantly, White parents were more likely to use school racial composition to distinguish between schools’ potential socioemotional support for students than schools’ support for parents, physical violence, and protection from infectious diseases. Figure 2 demonstrates that the difference in parents’ perceptions of student socioemotional safety in the White school compared with the Black and Latine schools is two to four times greater than the differences in their perceptions of parental support, violence, and biological safety (p < .001 for all, χ² test).

Figure 2 also shows two other notable patterns. First, school poverty had minimal impact on perceptions of school safety. Accounting for school racial composition, school poverty rates did not influence perceptions of school socioemotional safety and biological safety (all |b| < .03, p > .10) and only slightly influenced perceptions of school violence (b = .05, p < .05). Second, Figure 2 shows the magnitude of the school racial composition effects on parents’ perceptions of school safety were equivalent to or larger than the effect of the lower school quality ratings. For example, Figure 2A shows that the differences in parents’ anticipated student social-emotional support in the Black and Latine school compared with the White school (b = −.37, b = −.46) were 1.5 to 2 times larger in magnitude than the difference in their perceptions of social-emotional support in A- and C-rated schools (b = −.24).

Overall results demonstrate that, among schools with similar poverty rates, quality scores, and COVID-19 protocols, school racial composition influences parents’ perception of school socioemotional, physical violence, and biological safety. Results suggest that parents draw on race-specific stereotypes to anticipate their perceptions of differential forms of school safety. Reflecting tropes about Black and Latine individuals danger and disorder (Schachter 2021), White parents believed that the Black and Latine schools would be less socioemotional supportive, more violent, and less consistent in their public health policies than White schools. Aligning with stereotypes about Asian people being docile but perpetual foreigners (Lee et al. 2009), White parents did not anticipate any differences in violence between White and Asian schools but believed they and their students would have worse relationships with peers in Asian schools.

Moderating Factors

White parents’ racial attitudes, socioeconomic status, and political orientation moderated the effect of school racial composition on parents’ perceptions of school safety. Although most White parents expressed race-based perceptions of school socioemotional security, physical violence, and consistency in biological protections, these beliefs were more pronounced among parents expressing stronger pro-White sentiments; endorsing more racial stereotypes; as well as higher income parents and Republicans.

Pro-White Sentiment

Parents with stronger pro-White sentiments expressed more stringent racialized beliefs about school safety. Figure 4A shows White parents’ perceptions of school safety for respondents who were below and above the 50th percentiles on the pro-White racial attitudes scale. Parents with below average pro-White racial attitudes believed that their student would be less socioemotionally supported at Asian, Latine, and Black schools than at White schools (all b < −0.23, p < .01; see Table A4). Relative to those with below average pro-White attitudes, parents with above average sentiments believed there would be even larger gaps between White schools’ and Asian, Latine, and Black schools’ socioemotional security (all interaction b < −0.11, p < .10). Figure 4A similarly illustrates that, compared with those with below average pro-white sentiments, parents with above average pro-White racial attitudes believed there would be larger gaps between White schools’ and Latine and Black schools’ parental support (all interaction b < −0.16, p < .05) and White schools’ and Black schools’ physical violence (interaction b = .16, p < .01). The patterns in Figure 4A furthermore show that parents with above average pro-White racial attitudes rated the Black and Latine school .17 standard deviations below the White school on schools’ consistent rule implementation.

Figure 4.

Coefficients from hierarchical linear modeling moderation analysis predicting respondents’ perceptions of multiple elements of school safety by respondent racial attitudes.

Stereotype Endorsement

Parents who endorsed stronger racial stereotypes were also more likely to express more stringent racialized beliefs about school safety. Figures 4B to 4D illustrate White parents’ perceptions of school safety for respondents who were below and above the 50th percentiles on the anti-Black stereotype scale, the anti-Latine stereotype scale, and the model minority Asian stereotype scale. See Tables A5 to A7 for regressions.

Figure 4B demonstrates that White parents who endorse stronger anti-Black stereotypes are more likely to anticipate more distinct safety experiences between the White school and the Asian, Latine, and Black schools. Compared with respondents with below-average endorsement of the anti-Black stereotypes, those with above-average endorsements expressed larger differences in the Asian, Latine, and Black schools as less socioemotionally safe for students than the White school (all interaction b < −0.26, p < .001) and less supportive for parents than the White school (all interaction b < −0.15, p < .05; see Table A5). Those with above-average endorsements of the anti-Black stereotypes were also expressed larger differences in the Black and Latine schools as more violent than the White school (all interaction b > 0.20, p < .001).

Figure 4C shows that respondents who have above-average anti-Latine stereotype endorsement also have larger magnitudes in their perceptions of safety at the White school and non-White schools. Parents who endorse stronger anti-Latine stereotypes are more likely to believe that the Asian, Latine, and Black schools would be less socioemotionally safe for students than the White school (all interaction b < −0.19, p < .01; see Table A6). They also believe that the Latine schools would less supportive for parents than the White school (interaction b = −0.11, p < .10) and that the Latine and Black schools would be more prone to violence than the White school (all interaction b < 0.15, p < .05). Racialized perceptions of COVID-19 contagion at school also vary by respondents’ endorsement of anti-Latine stereotypes. We find that respondents with below-average endorsement of anti-Latine stereotypes believe students would be less likely to catch COVID-19 in the Asian school than in the White school (b = −.16, p < .01), while those above average on anti-Latine stereotypes believe that students’ likelihood of COVID-19 contagion would be similar at the Asian and White school (b = .01, p = .821) and higher at the Black school than the White school (b = .10, p < .10; all interaction b > 0.16, p < .05).

White parents who endorse stronger model minority Asian stereotypes are more likely to express racialized perceptions of school safety. Figure 4D shows that compared with parents with below-average endorsement of model minority Asian stereotypes, respondents with above-average stereotype endorsements expressed larger differences in the Asian, Latine, and Black schools as less socioemotionally safe for students than the White school (all interaction b < −0.20, p < .01) and as less supportive for parents than the White school (all interaction b < −0.15, p < .05; see Table A7). They were also more likely to anticipate that the Black and Latine schools would be more prone to violence than the White school (all interaction b > 0.13, p < .05).

Taken together, respondents who endorsed stronger anti-Black stereotypes, anti-Latine stereotypes, and stereotypes of Asians as model minorities were more likely to use school racial composition as a signal for school safety. These findings align with studies that showing that the model minority trope, while seemingly valorizing Asian people as competent, may still justify beliefs about Asian people and spaces as socially isolating for White people and, as such, places to be avoided.

Income

Figure 5 demonstrates that White parents across income-levels believed that, among otherwise similar schools, majority non-White schools would less socioemotionally supportive for their students than White schools and anticipated that Black schools would have less support for parents and more physical violence. The statistically significant interactions between schools’ racial compositions and respondents’ income suggest that White parent with incomes above $80,000 were more likely than lower income individuals to express racialized beliefs that the Asian, Latine, and Black schools’ climates would be less socioemotional supportive for students and parents (all interaction |b| < .16, p < .10) and that the Latine and Black schools would be more physically violent (all interaction |b| < .18, p < .05; see Table A8). Whereas parents in the lowest three income quartiles did not express racialized perceptions of students’ likelihood of catching COVID-19, higher income parents believed that their student would be more susceptible to COVID-19 in the Black and Latine schools than Asian school (b = .20, p < .05; see Figure 5B). Figure 5B shows that higher income parents expressed more pronounced differences potential COVID-19 contagion between the Latine school and Asian school than parents with incomes in the lowest two quartiles (all interaction |b| < .19, p < .10) and expressed more pronounced differences potential COVID-19 contagion in the Black school and Asian school than parents with incomes in the third quartile (interaction b = .26, p < .05) Compared with parents with incomes in the lowest two quartiles, higher income parents also expressed less confidence in Black and Latine schools consistently implementing COVID-19 protocols than Asian schools (all interaction |b| < .25, p < .05).

Figure 5.

Coefficients from hierarchical linear modeling moderation analysis predicting respondents’ perceptions of multiple elements of school safety by respondent income.

Political Orientation

Figure 6 shows that although White parents across the political spectrum expressed racialized perceptions of school safety, Republicans anticipated larger differences in school socioemotional security and physical violence between the White school and other schools than Democrats. Figure 6A illustrates that, relative to the White school, Republicans and Democrats both anticipated less student socioemotional support at non-White schools, less parental support at Black schools, more violence at Black and Latine schools, and less consistent public health practices at Black schools (all |b| < .10, p < .10; see Table A9). Compared with Democrats, Republicans anticipated larger differences in student and parent support at Latine, Black, and Asian schools than White schools and anticipated larger differences in potential violence in Black and Latine schools relative to White schools (all interaction |b| < .12, p < .05). Compared with Democrats, Republicans also distinguish more between student socioemotional support and violence at the Asian and Black schools (all interaction |b| < .16, p < .01; Figure 6B).

Figure 6.

Coefficients from hierarchical linear modeling moderation analysis predicting respondents’ perceptions of multiple elements of school safety by respondent political orientation.

Discussion

White parents express particularly distinct race-based perceptions of schools (Hailey 2022a, 2025b). White parents’ racialized beliefs influence their school choice preferences, enrollment patterns and, consequentially, the allocation of resources across schools (Hailey 2025b; Rich and Owens 2023). Using a Whiteness lens, we examines the types of perceived safety threats White parents associate with schools of varying demographic profiles.

Our survey experiment reveals that among schools with similar poverty levels and quality ratings, racial composition shapes White parents’ perceptions of various aspects of safety. Aligned with the inherent status placed on Whiteness (Harris 1993; Leonardo 2009), White parents anticipated predominantly White schools as safest across all safety elements. Their perceptions of the other schools reflected the US racial hierarchy: predominantly White schools were rated highest for socioemotional safety, followed by predominantly Asian, then Latine, and lastly Black schools. They also rated White and Asian schools above Black and Latine schools for protection from physical violence and consistent rule implementation. Our findings align with previous research indicating that White individuals associate predominantly Black spaces with higher levels of violence (Quillian and Pager 2010); however, results also suggest that White individuals also anticipate highest vulnerability to socioemotional insecurity in Black schools. Importantly, when accounting for school racial demographics, school poverty does not systematically predict White parents’ safety ratings suggesting that race and not class shapes White parents’ perceptions of schools.

Despite heightened political rhetoric scapegoating Asians for COVID-19 early in the pandemic (Darling-Hammond et al. 2020), we find that in summer 2021, White parents believed that biological threats of COVID-19 contagion were highest in Black schools. This perception could have been due to an increased stigmatization of Black people in summer 2021, when media covered Black individuals’ higher rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations (Harell and Lieberman 2021; Laster Pirtle 2020; Skinner-Dorkenoo et al. 2022) and conservative outlets prompted fear of Black schools with “woke” curricula and programming (Crenshaw 2022; Malin and Lubienski 2022).

Although most research on racialized school choice focuses on liberal, “well-intentioned,” middle-class families navigating urban school choice structures (Cucchiara and Horvat 2014; Roda and Wells 2013), this study expands understanding by examining how race-based perceptions of school safety vary across White parents’ political orientation, income bracket, and racial beliefs and attitudes. We find that racialized perceptions of school socioemotional and physical safety were more distinct among higher income White parents, Republican White parents, and White parents with stronger endorsements of Asian model minority, anti-Black, and anti-Latine stereotypes than White parents with lower incomes, who were Democrats, and who held less stigmatizing race-based stereotypes. Yet challenging assumptions that only select White populations espouse racialized beliefs, our findings reveal common race-based evaluations among White parents across income, political, and ideological spectra (Bonilla-Silva 2013; Murray and Hailey 2024). In alignment with a theory of Whiteness, White parents, regardless of background, believed that non-White schools would be less socioemotionally safe for students; Black schools would be less supportive for parents; and Black and Latine schools would be more violent. This result suggests that race-based beliefs about school safety likely operate as dominant racial ideologies, framing collective narratives about racialized schools (Bonilla-Silva 2013; Evans 2024).

Although this study was unable to assess the role of networks in generating White parents’ perceptions, prior studies show that White parents circulate racialized narratives about schools through their networks with whom they collaborate in identifying and choosing prospective schools (Bader et al. 2019; Valant and Newark 2020). Embedded in these narratives are socially acceptable concerns, such a fit and violence victimization, to justify their preference for predominantly White schools and neighborhoods (Evans 2024; Holme 2002; Kafka 2022). This study helps illuminate the exact race-coded narratives White families may employ to signal concerns with schools’ racial composition. For example, White parents may cite worries about students’ potential friendships and socioemotional well-being as reasons to avoid schools with larger non-White student populations. Similarly, they may justify avoiding schools with more Black and Latine students by expressing concerns with violence, public health, and school order.

Given White parents’ collective power to shape school practices and educational policies, the racialized school narratives documented in this study also have implications for understanding the creation and maintenance of structural racism in education (Murray and Hailey 2024). Racial ideologies that frame Asian schools as socially isolating and Latine and Black schools as socioemotional harmful, violent, disorderly, and biologically unsafe can evolve into networked narratives. White parents in policy decision-making roles, such as on state education boards, may use these narratives to justify support of rezoning programs that limit Asian, Black, and Latine populations in local schools and the expansion of private-school voucher programs that facilitate parents using public funding to opt into majority-White schools (Castro, Parry, and Siegel-Hawley 2022; Freidus 2020; Riel 2021).

Whiteness is an anchor through which individuals assign value to racialized spaces. This study suggests that, in addition to perceiving Black and Latine spaces as inherently violent and disorderly (Bonam, Bergsieker, and Eberhardt 2016; Quillian and Pager 2010; Sampson and Raudenbush 2004), White individuals may also anticipate worse interactions, limited support, fewer friendships, and biological health risks in non-White physical spaces (i.e., businesses, parks, neighborhoods, cities). Race-based beliefs around socioemotional, physical, and biological safety may contribute to White individuals’ avoidance of non-White physical spaces and reinforce differential policies that systematically disadvantage theses spaces. These insights may help explain that some White individuals may call the cops on Black people occupying space in neighborhoods, because their presence represents a threat to White individuals’ sense of physical and socioemotional safety.

Neoliberal, color-blind frameworks assume that consumers and citizens primarily evaluate and choose potential goods on the basis of objective quality indicators (Chubb and Moe 1990). On the basis of this framework, when provided with additional information about school performance, parents would theoretically be less likely to choose schools on the basis of proxies for quality such as social and economic demographics (Corcoran and Jennings 2019; Hastings and Weinstein 2008). Our findings challenge this notion. In contrast to studies emphasizing that providing actual quality measures of schools would constrain parents’ race-based evaluations and choices of schools (Houston and Henig 2023), we find that school racial composition matters as much, and in some cases more, than school quality indicators in shaping perceptions of schools. If parents’ awareness of school quality measures were the driver of school evaluations, we would not expect White parents’ race-based perceptions of schools vary by their racial beliefs and attitudes. However, we find that parents with more negative racial sentiments and stronger endorsements of stereotypes were more likely to express race-based perceptions. Indeed, if statistical discrimination were the culprit of racialized school choices, as opposed to taste-based discrimination driven by racial biases, we would also not expect significant differences across Republican and Democrat parents. Instead, we find that Republican White parents are more prone to using racial composition as a signal for unsafe school environments. This is consistent with the understanding of partisan media that shapes perceptions about racialized groups (e.g., rhetoric blaming Black and Latine immigrants for economic precarity, crime, and biological harms to communities evidenced recently by claims that Haitians are eating your pets, causing rises in AIDS levels, and increasing crime) (Gil de Zúñiga, Correa, and Valenzuela 2012; Mils 2017). These results reinforce that racial biases and cultural stereotypes cloud perceptions of and preferences for high-quality schools and neighborhoods, leading to behaviors that strengthen racial segregation, and consequently racial-economic inequality (Billingham and Hunt 2016; Hailey 2022b, 2025b; Krysan, Farley, and Couper 2008).

Limitations and Future Research

We attenuate these findings with the recognition that survey experiments come with several limitations. For one, there are trade-offs between the high internal validity achieved and our ability to extrapolate these findings beyond the context in which the survey was administered. This survey was conducted at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic following widespread protests reckoning with entrenched racism in the criminal justice system in response to the murder of George Floyd. White parents’ race-based perceptions, particularly of physical and biological safety, may have been heightened because of regular exposure to local and national discourse public health and public safety crises. However, this experiment was modeled on the type of data typically available and relevant to parents during the pandemic and still reflects the extent to which White parents relied on racial composition to signal various forms of safety in schools.

Our analysis centers on White parents’ racialized perceptions of schools, given their collective influence on educational policy. Prior studies indicate that race-based perceptions differ across racial groups (Hailey 2022b, 2025b). Accordingly, future studies should explore whether school racial composition shapes Latine, Asian, and Black parents’ beliefs about multiple dimensions of school safety.

Additionally, it is difficult to assess parents’ school preferences through a limited number of school characteristics. Although these findings provide important insights into parents’ school choices, it is difficult to evaluate parents’ preferences for competing priorities amid real-world dynamics and environments. Specifically, we did not provide safety information to families. Future research should examine how the availability of school safety information such as school and neighborhood violence rates, discipline data, and student perceptions of safety influence parents’ preferences for racially diverse schools. This points to the need for need more data about school safety, such as national school climate surveys, how families prioritize various forms of safety when they choose potential schools, and how the provision of various school characteristic information reinforce or undermine parents’ racial biases. See Hailey et al. (2023) for a thorough discussion of this study’s limitations.

Conclusion

Race influences White parents’ assessments of multiple components of school safety. Using a school choice survey in which parents evaluated school profiles with randomized demographics and quality ratings, we find that White parents stigmatize non-White schools as socioemotionally hazardous, Black and Latine schools as violent and disorderly, and Black schools as biological threatening. Although White parents’ race-based perceptions of school safety vary, these racialized narratives are somewhat common across income, political orientation, and racial ideology. As publicly funded school choice policies expand, it is critical to understand how these racialized beliefs shape parents’ schooling decisions and undermine policy aims to reduce racial segregation and racial-economic inequities.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-srd-10.1177_23780231251342831 – Supplemental material for Disentangling the Threat: Experimental Evidence on White Parents’ Racialized Perceptions of Multiple Dimensions of School Safety

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-srd-10.1177_23780231251342831 for Disentangling the Threat: Experimental Evidence on White Parents’ Racialized Perceptions of Multiple Dimensions of School Safety by Chantal A. Hailey and Brittany Murray in Socius

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Jennifer Jennings, Bridget Goosby, Abigail Weitzman, Dominique Mack, DeBraca Rodriguez, and Joi Stephenson for feedback on experimental design. Thank you to Rachel Boggs, Jalisa Broussard, Milani Flores, and Karen Loya for helpful research assistance with conceptualization and implementing the experiment.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This material is based upon work supported by The Policy Academies and the Population Research Center, awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD042849).

ORCID iDs

Chantal A. Hailey

Brittany Murray

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author Biographies

Chantal A. Hailey, is an assistant professor of sociology at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on how micro decision making contributes to larger macro segregation and stratification patterns and how racism creates, sustains, and exacerbates racial, educational, and socioeconomic inequality.

Brittany Murray, is the Malcolm O. Partin Assistant Professor of Educational Studies and Political Science at Davidson College. Her research examines the roles of families and communities in shaping educational policies, school resource allocation, and the distribution of learning opportunities.

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