“Excessive rightsizing? The interdependence of public school closures and population shrinkage” is a brand new publication authored by Pop Place members Rachel Barber and Maxwell Hartt, along with their Queen’s University colleague Patricia Collins.
The article examines public school closures in Ontario, Canada, from 2011 to 2016 to determine the relationship between municipal population trajectories and size and public school closures, and to explore the prevalence of school closures and the community context in shrinking Ontario municipalities. We find that public school closures occurred disproportionately in shrinking and smaller municipalities. Furthermore, public school closure prevalence is associated with low income, low ethnoracial diversity, and low educational attainment.
The article is OPEN ACCESS and can be found here.