DeMarcus Jenkins: Penn Professor and Researcher Examines Relationship Between Housing and Education

When DeMarcus Jenkins (’18, Ph.D., Urban Schooling) was a high school English teacher in East Coast schools, he realized that his high-performing students had to face a number of challenges – including dangerous neighborhoods and food insecurity - before they arrived in his classroom each day. 

This discovery led Jenkins, who was recently appointed an assistant professor in the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, to focus his research on the fraught relationships between local and federal housing policies and education. He currently serves as co-principal investigator on a study with colleagues from Washington University of St. Louis, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Illinois, supported with a $513K research award from the William T. Grant Foundation. The research team is examining the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Choice Neighborhood Initiative.  

Jenkins also serves as co-PI on a project funded by the Spencer Foundation, looking at the removal of school police from urban districts. At the University of Pennsylvania, he has a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication.

Jenkins earned his M.Ed. in English education from Georgia State University and his master’s in secondary education and teaching from American University. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan where he double majored in English and AfroAmerican and African Studies.

How is the HUD study progressing?

The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, which essentially is a place-based policy to reform or [improve] HOPE VI, that works to develop mixed income housing. But in addition to mixing income housing, it focuses on neighborhood development as well. 

I am the co-PI responsible for the qualitative data collection, and they're seeking to understand how low-income Black parents make their education and housing decisions in the midst of all the transitions. My research also seeks to understand the influence of case workers who assist families [with] access to additional resources, help them to inform and work with parents and families on relocation decisions as well as school decisions, totally trying to understand how the case workers are influencing the process of mobility for Black parents.  

Part of what we are trying to understand is the impact of the housing policy on the educational outcomes of black youth in three different choice neighborhood contexts. We’re looking at the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative in Memphis, Tennessee, St. Louis, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland. We have completed qualitative [data collection] in two of our three sites. It's a mixed method study, and we're still collecting a bunch of the quantitative data… working through that and beginning our preliminary analysis with that, and we have recently completed qualitative data collection in Memphis, Tennessee, as well as St. Louis, Missouri. We’re in the process now of scheduling our third data collection site in Baltimore so that we can do some cross-case analysis, and also dig deeply into how the perspective of families are corresponding and collaborating with the quantitative data, once those analyses are are under way.

We are learning so much about a number of things. Chief among them, how Black parents within this context are making educational decisions for youth, some of which confirms what we know from the literature and our preliminary insights. This is providing new ideas, new insights for how we think about school choice for low-income, Black parents against the context of neighborhood development and in housing specifics. Another fascinating insight from the study is how Black parents are engaging in the process of self determination and self-preservation within this process. 

Another interesting thing, at least as it relates to other work that I'm doing, is how notions of safety and security continue to come up. What I mean by that in particular, is how, even within the context of mixed-income housing and neighborhoods redeveloping, our families are still thinking about what it means to to live in a neighborhood where they feel safe. This became really pronounced in one of our sites where  cameras and increased security on the buildings was an important intervention for safety but parents are not necessarily finding those tools to provide any increased safety.

It really pushes against what has been normalized, commonplace approaches to neighborhood safety. These things are not what are providing an additional layer of safety, even in the context of mixed income housing. That points us to the need to continue to [urge] policymakers, urban planners, and city planners to think more deeply about what safety means in this context.

By mixed-income, does it mean that these families are living alongside more middle-class or affluent families, and if so, how does that affect their ability to access services?

Part of the way that the program works is that they raze a low-income housing development and then they'll be able to build another one and some units in those and those developments are reserved for families who have access to housing vouchers. So, you have some families who are receiving housing vouchers and some of their neighbors are paying market rate. They are brand new developments with lots of new amenities, so that the social networks that are developed or cultivated in those context shifts in that way. 

Is this research influenced by your dissertation?

My dissertation looked at a similar phenomenon. I was interested in the relationship between gentrification and school reform in Washington, D.C. At least, that's how the project started. 

I went into my dissertation study trying to understand how that relationship was impacting low-income residents in Washington, D.C., where the particular neighborhood under investigation was experiencing a slower form of gentrification. It was a neighborhood that was on the margins of being redeveloped and I wanted to explore how that particular process, and many other processes were shaping how educators approached their work in that context.

My dissertation pointed me to the ways that educators within that context were engaging in school-community partnerships and connecting with communities, to not only supplement the the resources that they needed for [their] school, but to also think about a holistic approach to educating Black children in a gentrifying context. That piqued my interest in not just how neighborhood development impacts school reform, but also had me thinking about the connections that educators can make with the surrounding local community to better educate Black youth, but also provide them with additional resources and supports that are needed to supplement the resource gaps that public schools [serving] low-income Black and Brown communities, often face.

Did HUD play a role in school desegregation and if so, how has that role evolved?

That has not come up yet in this study. What did come up though is the barriers that families are facing when trying to access different services. These really important federal housing initiatives are designed to improve policies,practices, and programs for low-income families. And then at the state and municipal level there are other barriers families are facing that complicate federal policy initiatives. 

What I mean by that in particular is, as mixed income housing is being developed and the neighborhood around those housing complexes are being developed, families are still facing challenges with transportation to get to to their jobs or they're still facing challenges with navigating the bureaucratic systems of social services to get the support that they need. Even in the the context of these very important federal housing initiatives, there are still some micro-level processes and systems that are not easy to navigate. Families are struggling to do that in ways that allow them to get the resources and services that they need to be self sufficient to be independent and to accomplish the dreams and visions they have for their families.

What do you look forward to most in your new positions at the University of Pennsylvania?

I'm really excited about the unique program [at the School of Social Policy and Practice] because it is a policy program that strives to integrate theory into developing prospective policymakers. Where policy programs tend to rely on economics or quantitative insights… this program is challenging policy students to grapple with complex theory, especially around race and inequality and how that shows up in policy. I’m excited about the potential that this program has to develop a new cohort of policy scholars that are thinking deeply, not just about numbers and figures, but also around theories and ideas that go into state and foreign policy.

Education is one strand of social policy. I also do work in housing policy and criminal justice policy. This is an opportunity for me to spread my wings a little more broadly, to continue thinking about education, but then also going back to those critical questions that took me to my graduate studies at UCLA in the first place, which were bigger questions around policy, not just schools, wanting to think about other sectors that inform and intersect with education policy. 

What inspired you to take this research path?

I was a high school English teacher in Washington, D.C.. New York, and Atlanta, Georgia. Through that work, I started to realize that the challenges that my students were facing in schools were challenges that they were navigating far before they came to my classroom. 

My students would come to school every day and give their best, and yet, they were often distracted or encumbered by situations that they faced before they even got to my classroom. Those were challenges within the neighborhoods that they lived in… with having access to adequate food or sufficient sleep. My initial question or hypothesis was that it was happening in their neighborhoods, and something about the context in which my students lived and learned was shaping their classroom experiences. I started to understand the interconnectedness of multiple systems that shape students’ schooling experiences.  

In addition to working as a teacher, I also worked in state and local policy, so I had the chance to also explore those questions from the policy arena. Thinking about these questions as a teacher and as someone who worked in policy really shapes how I approach my research and the types of questions and solutions that my research is geared toward.

Any shout-outs to UCLA faculty or classmates?

I am forever thankful to Dr. Tyrone Howard. He continues to be an amazing mentor and inspiration. I have witnessed him navigating what it means to be a Black male professor with grace and kindness and humility, and he is a prototype for how I position myself as a professor, as a mentor, and as a colleague. 

Kim Gomez is someone else whose compassion and ability to always support and always champion students, is remarkable. Dr. Gomez has unwavering belief in students’ potential. The doctoral journey can get very dark and difficult and through that, identifying people and faculty members who would offer this support and kindness was essential in my development. Those two people in particular showed up for me in ways that I still reflect on today and inform how I engage with my students.

A shout-out to my cohort, who were supportive throughout my entire process. We were able to bind together and support each other, which I think is very important.  

The structure of the program, especially with the the RAC course, was extremely helpful in sharpening my acumen and my skills as a researcher. I definitely need to shout-out to Dr. Walter Allen, who was my RAC professor. I still attend his RAC, even though I’m six years out at this point.

I remember when I first started going to his RAC as a second-year student. I did a presentation in his class, and he said, “This is brilliant. Your presentation was brilliant. You were brilliant.” I remember how that made me feel, as someone who was unsure if my ideas were worthy – it really affirmed my budding [research]. It’s those moments that make UCLA such a special place.