Exploring the Relationships Between Portable Classroom Use, Achievement, and Socioeconomic Status

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Examining School Programs, School Composition, Portable Use, and Teacher Pedagogy From an Equity Perspective (Table 38)

Abstract

Portable classrooms, also known as mobile, demountable, or relocatable classrooms, are temporary buildings used when additional space is needed in schools. Because of their low cost and rapid deployment, portable classrooms are a popular response to enrolment pressures in school districts in the US and Canada. While portables are meant to be provisional solutions to overcrowding, research in this area have found that these structures tend to become permanent. Informed by this insight, this study investigates the socio- economic characteristics of the schools that use portables, as well as the impacts that these environments may have on academic achievement. The analysis uses achievement and school demographic data from the 27 largest school districts in Ontario, Canada

Authors

• Gus Riveros, Western University

• Chenyang Zhou, Western University