Beyond the Headlines: Trends and Future Directions in the School Closure Literature

Abstract

With the looming impacts of COVID-19 on district budgets, the growth of school choice options, and population shifts across urban, suburban, and rural contexts, an increasing number of districts have closed schools and more districts are expected to follow this trend. Rich scholarship has examined school closures; however, this field of research is limited in scope and methodological approach, and overwhelmingly focuses on the mass urban school closures of the mid-2010s. This offers a timely opportunity to consider new directions in the field. In this article, we identify trends in the scholarship on school closures by examining the empirical research in this area over nearly two decades. We conclude by offering a research agenda for future scholarship on school closures.