The Student Shuffle: System-level Implications of School Closures

• In Event: 523 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 10. School Context and Characteristics: Session I

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of large-scale school closures in US school districts. For example, in 2013, Chicago Public Schools closed 50 schools – forcing over 30,000 students and 300 teachers to search for other schooling or employment options. The closing of a school is a major event that displaces and redistributes students, teachers, administrative staff and district resources such as funding and facilities. Much school closure research addresses the closure process, how closures impact parents, social and neighborhood cohesion, and student outcomes. With more districts resorting to school closure as an accountability method and increased numbers of schools being closed at once, research should use an organizational approach to address the implications of school closures for surviving schools in the district. Approaching school closures as organizational disbandings allows for the examination of their impacts on other organizations in the environment. A disbanding could involve the intentional or unintentional redistribution of resources, like teachers and students, to particular schools. Organizations can also employ certain adaptive behaviors in response to environmental changes thus contributing to the reproduction of inequality. This project examines how the closing of a nearby school and the resulting redistribution of resources impacts student composition, academic performance and programs at surviving schools. In doing so, this study will examine a potential mechanism through which schools reproduce stratification via their adaptive responses to local school closures.

Author

• Emily Persons, Duke University