  Sociologists of education increasingly highlight the role of opportunity
hoarding in the formation of Black-White educational inequalities. Informed by
this literature, this article unpacks the necessary and sufficient conditions
under which the hoarding of educational resources emerges within schools. It
develops a qualitatively informed agent-based model which captures Black and
White students' competition for a valuable school resource: advanced
coursework. In contrast to traditional accounts -- which explain the emergence
of hoarding through the actions of Whites that keep valuable resources within
White communities -- simulations, perhaps surprisingly, show hoarding to arise
even when Whites do not play the role of hoarders of resources. Behind this
result is the fact that a structural inequality (i.e., racial differences in
social class) -- and not action-driven hoarding -- is the necessary condition
for hoarding to emerge. Findings, therefore, illustrate that common
action-driven understandings of opportunity hoarding can overlook the
structural foundations behind this important phenomenon. Policy implications
are discussed.
