White Middle-Class Families and Sociocultural Diversity in Schools: A Literature Review

School choice parental practices have been extensively researched worldwide. Recently, an emergent line of studies has focused on the case of mostly white middle-class parents, who, in contrast to the dominant trend identified by sociological research, choose or are willing to choose a socially, racially and/or ethnically diverse school for their children. The purpose of this article is to review the literature published between 2000 and 2017 on this nascent field, exploring the characteristics of families’ ‘against the grain’ choice processes, the parental practices deployed for managing school diversity, and their consequences for intra-school integration. Results highlight (a) the tensions underlying parental choices for diversity, (b) the multiple individual and collective practices that families implement to confront sociocultural school mix, and (c) the implications for the emergence of social and racial/ethnic intra-school segregation and power dynamics within communities. Based on the findings presented, the article discusses suggestions for further research.