Depopulation as a Means of Re-segregation: Racial Patterns in Rural School Closure, 1987-2015

• In Event: 3429 - Section on Sociology of Education Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 25. Rural Education

Abstract

Abstract: More than 20,000 public schools were permanently closed between 1987 and 2015, many in rural communities. Given the general trend of urbanization in the United States, the closure of rural schools is not necessarily a cause for alarm; under most models of public education, schools can only operate effectively with enough students to sustain them. However, an analysis of the racialized patterns of school closure in rural America, particularly in the rural South, suggest that student numbers and efficiency are not sufficient to explain patterns of school closure. This paper finds that, in general, schools with larger non-white populations in 1987 were at increased risk of closure. However, in the South, schools that were relatively integrated faced higher risk of closure relatively to predominately white or predominately black schools. Because rates of integration in the United States peaked in the late 1980s, these trends suggest that rural depopulation, and the resulting disinvestment of public resources, created unique disadvantages for rural communities of color.

Author

• Ryan James Parsons, Princeton University