Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

DOI

10.1080/20004508.2025.2544448

Publication Title

Education Inquiry

Volume

Advance online publication

Pages

17 pp.

Abstract

Drawing on notions of social capital, insider knowledge embedded in "the grapevine", and the "labor of choice", this study examines interpretive assistance in the context of families' K-12 school decisions. It uses a qualitative case study of NGO navigator services, which provide school choice counselling primarily to low-income families of colour, to develop theoretical propositions related to the characteristics and potential benefits of interpretive assistance. As some researchers and conservative-leaning think tanks call for investing in navigator services, it is important to deepen our understanding of "high-touch" informational supports aimed at mitigating demand-side inequities in school choice.

Rights

© 2025 The Author.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY NC 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the accepted manuscript in a repository by the author or with their consent.

ORCID

0000-0001-5580-2201 (Saltmarsh)

Original Publication Citation

Saltmarsh, J. E. (2025). A case of interpretive assistance and school choice counseling. Education Inquiry. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/20004508.2025.2544448

Share

COinS