Neighborhood-School Structures: A New Approach to the Joint Study of Social Contexts

Abstract

Robust literatures separately estimate school effects and neighborhood effects on children's educational, economic, health, and other outcomes that measure well-being. A growing body of research acknowledges that both contexts matter and considers neighborhoods and schools jointly. In this review, we synthesize the array of results that emerge from these studies and critique the tendency for researchers to evaluate which matters more, neighborhoods versus schools. We propose a reorientation of this scholarship that incorporates research on neighborhood and school selection and segregation processes. We argue that contextual effects research would be enriched by considering local neighborhood-school structures: the ways that families choose neighborhoods and schools and that neighborhoods and schools mutually and cyclically constitute one another. We conclude with recommendations for bringing neighborhood-school structures to bear on both outcomes-oriented studies of neighborhood and school effects as well as studies of contextual selection and segregation.