Secondary School Choice and Student Mobility in an Increasingly Unaffordable City: Vancouver

• In Event: Roundtable Session 38
  In Roundtable Session: Understanding School Choice as a Geographically Relational Phenomenon Across North America: Using Geographic Information Systems Approaches

Abstract

Objectives: This paper examines the geo-spatial patterns of secondary school student mobility in the context of Vancouver, Canada, one of the least affordable cities in the world (Posadzki, 2015). The research questions are as follows: (1) How far do students travel to attend their schools of choice? (2) What are the differences, in terms of school and/or neighborhood characteristics such as housing prices and rental costs, between the schools of choice where students are currently enrolled, and their catchment schools? (3) How do economically marginalized families with high housing needs perceive and participate in school choice?

Theory, methodology, and data: Grounded in the field of human geography, this study uses a mixed-method approach, drawing from critical Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This approach allows layered understandings by (1) spatially estimating the school-related distance, and (2) examining the lived experiences and perceptions of families. First, GIS is used to analyze spatial data, provided by the Vancouver School Board, of approximately 22,000 secondary school students (2014-2015), as well as the National Household Survey of Canada (2011) data, which provides neighborhood characteristics. Network Analysis is employed to estimate how far each student travels from his/her home to his/her school. Finally, we use interviews with 22 low-income families to understand their perceptions.

Findings: We report four key findings. First, on average, secondary students travel approximately three kilometers to attend their schools of ‘choice’, which is about one kilometer farther than they would have to travel to attend their assigned catchment schools. Second, the average distance travelled between a student’s home and the school where he/she enrolled is farther for schools that are located in neighborhoods with higher income, higher education levels, and more European-Canadians. Third, the students who are enrolled in selective district choice programs travel on average an additional 2.5 kilometers; those who travel above this average tend to attend the schools on the affluent West side of Vancouver. Finally, our interviews indicate that choosing schools in Vancouver is economically infeasible for low-income families. Without free school bus services, monthly transportation costs can be too much for them to afford. Also, attending schools in wealthier neighborhoods may make them feel relatively ‘poor’ and their children may feel left out. In other words, most students who do choose out of their neighbourhood schools tend to have middle-class backgrounds.

Significance: This paper makes two important contributions. First, this study informs education policy makers about the current patterns of student mobility related to choosing schools; in particular, it informs us about the inadequacy and infeasibility of current school choice options for those who live under economic distress and disadvantage. This study thus calls for choice policies that can account for the growing economic inequalities. Second, this study suggests that more emphasis on the urban housing market is needed to illuminate changing spatial inequalities in the scholarship of the critical geography of school choice (Butler, Hamnett, Ramsden, & Webber, 2007; Lubienski, Lee, & Gordon, 2013)

Authors

• Ee-Seul Yoon, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Jin Lee, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Christopher A. Lubienski, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign