Residential Mobility and Educational Outcomes: Testing Competing Theories

• In Event: 28.084 - Social and School Context

Abstract

Residential mobility has been linked to negative child outcomes ostensibly since the Coleman Report (Coleman, 1988, Jelleyman & Spencer, 2007). Since then, scholars have examined residential mobility through the economic lens of housing adjustment, the sociological lens of structural inequality and the social psychological lens of family dynamics. However, little research has sought to combine the perspectives when examining educational performance. We test the competing residential mobility theories for school aged children and their families. We find that moving in and of itself is not linked to educational outcomes. We also find that cross-disciplinary explanations are necessary when considering educational outcomes as all the competing theories were both intertwined with residential mobility and influenced educational performance.

Authors

• Shana L. Pribesh, Old Dominion University

• Yuanyuan Yue, Old Dominion University

• Mikaela J. Dufur, Brigham Young University