School Context and Educational Outcomes: Results from a Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

In this study we draw on data from a quasi-experimental study to test whether moving into an affordable housing project in an affluent suburb yields educational benefits to the children of project residents, compared to the educations they would have received had they not moved into the project. Results suggest that resident children experienced a substantial improvement in school quality compared with an otherwise similar control group of students whose parents also had self-selected into the pool of people eligible for project residence. Parents who were project residents also displayed higher levels of school involvement compared with the control group of non-resident parents, and their children were exposed to significantly lower levels of school disorder and violence within school and spent more time reading outside of school. Although parental involvement in education did not affect students’ grade performance and project residence did not significantly influence GPA directly, the reduced exposure to disorder and violence and more time spent reading did raise the grades earned by project residents significantly, indicating that the educational improvements were achieved indirectly through these intervening variables.