Boundary Matters - Uncovering the Hidden History of New York City’s School Subdistrict Lines - Article

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam

Boundary Matters traces the spatial history of New York City’s geographic school subdistrict boundaries across the 20th century, linking race, space, and schooling. The article argues for studying within-district education boundaries and aims to place results from a historical mapping project into the public domain. It highlights how boundaries shape educational inequality by structuring access, exclusion, and segregation, and distinguishes school district boundaries from within-district enrollment zones and subdistrict lines.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction: educational boundaries and inequality

Historical scholarship on boundary making

Two forms of educational boundaries in the U.S.

School district boundaries

Within-district boundaries

AERA Open January-December 2021, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 1–12 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584211038939 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2021. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) Boundary Matters: Uncovering the Hidden History of New York City’s School Subdistrict Lines Judith Kafka Cici Matheny Baruch College, City University of New York This article traces the spatial history of New York City’s geographic school subdistrict boundaries throughout the 20th century, exploring the historical relationship between race, space, and schooling in New York City and beyond. It seeks to both make the case for studying the spatial history of within-district education boundaries and put the results of our historical mapping project into the public domain. Ultimately, we hope that researchers will use our data to explore their own questions about the history of New York City, its neighborhoods, and its schools, and that some may embark on similar boundarymapping projects for other cities, counties, and school systems. Keywords: GIS, spatial analysis, school districts, segregation Boundaries, by definition, divide. They separate space and people, and, in the context of schooling, they function as the foundation on which physical and institutional structures of educational inequality are built. As Genevieve Siegel-Hawley (2016) writes, “At the most basic level, once a geographic area defined by a boundary gains a name, it also gains a demographic identity,” often demarcating and reifying racial and economic segregation by determining access and justifying exclusion (p. 12) . Studying how educational boundaries have been created, maintained, and altered can thus reveal a great deal about the construction of educational inequality (or, alternatively, its reduction), as well as the relationship between schooling and spatial development. The importance of educational boundaries has not been lost on historians [of U.S. education](of U.S. education), many of whom have documented the myriad ways in which city, suburban, and county planners have drawn boundaries to both promote and reflect racial, ethnic, and economic school segregation (Benjamin, 2012; Dougherty, 2012; Garcia, 2018; Highsmith & Erickson, 2015; Kelly, 2020; Rury, 2020) . Most existing historical scholarship that examines school and district boundaries in the United States explores documented discussions about where and how to draw boundary lines at particular moments in time—often highlighting pivotal junctures in the past that set the stage for today’s spatial and educational inequalities, and at times also marking histories of resistance, community-based organizing, and moments of expanded inclusion and access (Hodge, 2018; Perlstein, 2004) . Boundary lines are not drawn on a blank canvas, however; they represent either an acknowledgement of existing spatial distinctions or an intentional break from the past. Tracing the evolution of school and district boundary lines through time and context can thus offer greater understandings of today’s spatial patterns, divisions, and inequalities. Moreover, as Matthew Kelly (2019) has pointed out, historicizing education boundaries and making their seemingly imaginary lines visible can also help researchers identify new, concrete questions to ask of the past. In the United States, there are two primary forms of educational boundaries. School district boundaries often separate tax bases and access to financial resources, dividing the “haves” from the “have nots” and criminalizing families if they seek an education for their children across a boundary line (Rooks, 2017) . Within-district boundaries, on the other hand, do not usually indicate divisions based on distinct governmental units or tax bases. Instead, within-district boundaries, such as school enrollment zones or subdis

FAQs

What historical scope does the article cover for New York City school boundaries?

The article traces NYC geographic school subdistrict boundaries throughout the 20th century.

Why does the article focus on within-district education boundaries?

It argues that studying within-district boundaries helps reveal how educational access and exclusion are constructed within larger school systems.

How do school district boundaries differ from within-district boundaries?

School district boundaries often relate to tax bases and financial resources, while within-district boundaries such as enrollment zones primarily divide within, shaping neighborhood/place identities that affect school demographics.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Adam