Social and spatial inequalities of educational opportunity: A portrait of schools serving high- and low-income neighbourhoods in US metropolitan areas

Neighbourhoods and schools are both important contexts for children’s wellbeing. While often posited, little evidence documents inequalities in schools serving high- and low-income neighbourhoods. In this article, we use geospatial techniques to combine five administrative data sets to examine the characteristics of local public schools serving high- and low-income neighbourhoods in US metropolitan areas in 2013–2014. We find that high-income neighbourhoods are served by schools with greater social, financial, and instructional resources and greater student achievement than schools serving low-income neighbourhoods. Moreover, when metropolitan neighbourhoods are highly segregated by income, these inequalities are exacerbated. Our results demonstrate the link between neighbourhood and school disadvantage, with implications for policymakers concerned about social mobility and inequality. 街区和学校都是事关儿童福祉的重要环境。虽然经常被假定，但很少有证据表明分别服务于高收入和低收入街区的不同学校存在不平等现象。在本文中，我们使用地理空间技术将五个行政数据集合起来，以研究2013 - 2014年在美国大都市区分别为高收入和低收入街区服务的当地公立学校的特征。我们发现，与服务低收入街区的学校相比，高收入街区由具有更多社会、经济和教学资源以及更高学生成绩的学校提供服务。 此外，当大都市街区被收入高度隔离时，这些不平等现象会加剧。我们的研究结果表明了街区和学校不利地位之间的联系，对政策制定者关注社会流动性和不平等具有参考价值。