School Consolidation Research Articles

Does School Consolidation in Rural Areas Affect Students' Education? Empirical Evidence From China

ABSTRACTIn the late 1990s, an extensive consolidation of schools in rural China led to the amalgamation of numerous primary and secondary schools into urban schools or their discontinuation. The study aimed to investigate whether China's school consolidation movement has influenced the educational attainment of rural students. The data are sourced from the China Household Income Project (CHIP) and regional statistical yearbooks, and the cross‐section difference‐in‐differences (DID) method is used to analyse the differences in high school enrolment of rural students between regions with different degrees of school consolidation. Empirical analysis results indicate that school consolidation substantially enhances the probability of rural students receiving high school education, as well as having a positive impact on rural students taking the college entrance examination and receiving a longer formal education. Moreover, the findings of the empirical analysis remain significant even after controlling for variations in government educational expenditures, substituting the explained variables, as well as eliminating the influence of school‐entering age. The adjustment of rural schools, as an inevitable historical trend, is beneficial to improving rural educational attainment.

Long-term effects of early-life education intervention on children’s outcomes: Evidence from school consolidation in rural China

Government commitment to early-life education intervention has contributed to human capital accumulation and economic growth in developing countries. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies, we investigate the effects of the primary school consolidation program on children’s cognitive development and behavioral performance. Using a cohort difference-in-differences model, we find that rural children who experienced school consolidation performed better in cognitive tests and had higher levels of openness of the Big Five personality traits, but lower levels of extraversion. Further analysis suggests that early-life education intervention generates long-term effects. Those who experienced school consolidation had higher educational attainment, better occupational fit, and more consistent independent learning, but difficulties in interpersonal interaction. Our findings imply that early-life education intervention should pay more attention to the cultivation of socio-emotional abilities.

A Simple Handshake: Public Schools for Amish Students in a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, School District, 1953–1994

Public school consolidation during the 1950s and 1960s in Lancaster and Chester Counties, Pennsylvania, sparked an exodus of Amish children from the area’s public schools and the establishment of Amish schools. The politics of consolidation in one location, however, resulted in a unique arrangement whereby the Lampeter-Strasburg School District, formed in 1953 in southcentral Lancaster County, operated two one-room schools for Amish residents of the district for more than forty years. The positive relationship between Amish families and public school leaders exemplifies the possibility of comity and cooperation in contrast to the narrative of discord and conflict around Amish schooling in the mid-twentieth-century.

시스템 사고를 활용한 저출산과 교육의 인과 현상 분석

Considering that the low fertility phenomenon is intricately intertwined with education, this study attempted to analyze the causal phenomenon of low fertility and education through the lens of systems thinking. First, the relationship between low fertility and education and the logic of the education policy in response to low fertility were analyzed with a causal loop diagram, and then the problem of the education policy in response to low fertility was analyzed by synthesizing them.
 The analysis revealed that the low fertility is reinforced by establishing mutual causal relationships with education-related variables such as the burden of private education costs, increased demand for higher education, and the deterioration of the quality of the educational environment. The education policies in response to low fertility that emerged in this context were passive policies, focusing on adapting to a low fertility society(e.g., university structural reform, reduction of the number of teachers, consolidation of schools, and complexation of school facilities), and active policies, aimed at raising fertility rates(e.g., expanding care supply and supporting education expenses). However, it was found that the intervention effect of the education policy in response to low fertility was limited due to problems such as lack of consideration of key factors of low fertility, such as the burden of private education expenses, or unintended negative results such as a decrease in the quality of the educational environment were found in the policy execution process. Based on these research results, the matters to be considered in the design and implementation of low fertility education policies were presented as implications.

폐교 활용 의사결정 요인 분석

Since 1982, when the Ministry of Education's small school consolidation policy was implemented, a total of 3,922 schools have been closed as of March 2023. Most of the previous studies have focused on analyzing cases and recommending how to utilize them. This study takes a quantitative approach by considering time to examine what factors are considered in the four types of management (non-utilization, self-utilization, lease and sale) after the decision to close. A panel probit model with sample selection bias was applied in three steps. The results showed that the age of the school and the total appraised value of the land and building are important factors in whether the school is utilized; land area, building area, land appraised value, population density, and population growth rate are important factors in whether the school is self-utilized; and land area, price, and financial independence are important factors in whether the school is sold. Through this study, we derived the selection factors that are important for the public sector, which must efficiently manage closed schools, and the private sector, which wants to earn profits by utilizing them and provide useful information for establishing policies necessary to efficiently manage closed schools.

The long-term effects of school consolidation on human capital formation

ABSTRACT This study investigates the long-term effects of school consolidation on human capital formation. We explore the implementation of a large-scale primary school consolidation programme in rural China aimed at improving the quality and efficiency of education. Using a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that exposure to the programme significantly increases the number of years of schooling completed by rural children. The effect changes with exposure duration to the RPSC programme and is stronger for children from areas with low economic development, areas with low educational inputs, and families with low parental education. Moreover, we provide evidence that improvements in input-based and output-based school quality are important mechanisms by which the programme affects educational attainment. Finally, the results of further analysis alert us to the adverse effects of the programme on noncognitive skills such as agreeableness and emotional stability, as well as on labour supply time in adulthood.

학령인구 감소 연구에 관한 국내 연구동향 분석

Objectives This study aims to analyze the domestic research trends in the study of the declining school-age population due to the low birthrate, currently the million-dollar question in Korea. Based on the results, the study will provide meaningful basic data for the conception and establishment of education policies and suggest efficient research directions for subsequent studies to help strengthen educational competitiveness that determines the country's future.
 Methods To this end, 62 studies were selected after searching and classifying 110 domestically published dissertations and academic journal articles from 2000 to August 2022, and the research trends were analyzed in terms of the research period, research subjects, research regions, and research topics through classification analysis criteria and inter-rater agreement verification. The research tool used for descriptive statistics was Excel to calculate frequencies and percentages. 
 Results Major results are as follows: First, there were 5 (8.1%) research papers on school consolidation, closure, and relocation, which were classified as hardware, as a research topic, which accounted for the highest number, followed by 4 (6.5%) research papers on how to utilize idle and spare classrooms, and 9 (50%) research papers related to these two keywords. In the research keywords categorized as software, there was a slight difference in ranking by topic, and among them, research papers with keywords related to the development and improvement directions of education, future-oriented education, etc. accounted for the largest number of 6 (9.7%), followed by research papers on student placement planning with 5 (8.1%). Second, in terms of yearly trends, from 2000 to 2013, there were 0-1 studies, and from 2015 onward, there were 3-5 studies published annually, with a significant increase in 2020, when the urgency of the declining school-age population hit the ground running. Third, in terms of human aspects, the biggest number of 30 papers (47.6%) studied teachers, students, and parents as research subjects, and in terms of physical aspects, the biggest number of 26 papers (41.3%) studied schools and facilities. Fourth, in terms of the distribution of regions studied, an overwhelming number of 26 papers (41.9%) focused on the national level, followed by 8 papers (12.9%) focused on the capital area, including Seoul. There were 1-2 research papers for each metropolitan city, but none of them studied Gwangju Metropolitan City. Of the 75 autonomous cities in Korea, only 12 cities (16%), including the first-phase new towns, were studied under the keyword of “declining school-age population,” and of the 8 provincial regions, only 3 regions, Chungcheongnam-do, Chungcheongbuk-do, and Gyeongsangnam-do, were not studied and compared.
 Conclusions Based on the derived results, we summarized the tendencies of research trends for papers related to the declining school-age population and suggested implications for further studies in terms of diversifying and deepening research and its necessity.

지속가능성 확보를 위한 제주 마을의 ‘관계인구’ 형성 사례 연구

Recently, the concept of “relational population” has been mentioned as an alternative to overcome the crisis of local extinction. This study introduces the concept of “relational population” which was first discussed in Japan. Then, applying the concept of relational population to the local situation of Jeju where the outflow of young population and the re-outflow of immigrants are problematic, the current resident population is assumed to be “potential relational population”. In the case study area of Gwideok 1-ri, the elementary school in the area became a candidate for elementary school consolidation due to a sharp decline in population. Residents felt the threat of village extinction and considered ways to secure the sustainability of the region, such as inducing households with school-age children, organizing a village education community, and holding small-scale festivals led by residents. This study is an attempt to interpret community activities in the region as “experiences of forming relationships” at a time when the concept of “relational population” is being actively discussed in Korea.

Rural–Urban Educational Inequalities and Their Spatial Variations in China

Existing discussions of rural–urban education inequality focus primarily on education investment and/or attainment, with little attention being paid to the opportunities or potential that an area has to achieve better educational outcomes. This study presents a new analytical framework based on Amartya Sen’s capability approach for a better understanding of rural–urban education disparity. In addition, the rural–urban definitions for educational research are clarified and the effects of a wide range of Central Government policies aimed at reducing the rural–urban educational gap are assessed. The results suggest: inadequate investment (e.g., funding and high-quality teaching resources) in rural education in some regions, especially middle and high schools; inappropriate partitioning of the national territory by the Government for policy implementation; and negative effects resulting from the school consolidation policy. The latter will influence the ability of some rural areas to match the educational achievements of their urban counterparts. This research also reveals that the existing rural–urban gap will be unlikely to narrow under the current policy regime. A conventional approach based on investment and outcomes alone in rural–urban disparity research and policy may overlook the important interactions and conversion processes that are important for mitigating rural–urban disparities.

역사적 가치를 가진 폐교의 활용을 위한 리트로핏 제안

A number of schools were closed due to the implementation of the small-scale school consolidation policy. The problem of neglecting closed schools is being solved by changing its purpose to office spaces, libraries, short-term residential facilities, and dormitories. However, old closed schools consume a lot of building energy due to insufficient thermal performance of the building envelope. Therefore, this study proposed energy retrofit of closed schools to reduce carbon emissions in the building sector. First, the building energy performance of the target building was diagnosed, and then the effect of improving the building energy performance by applying the retrofit package technology was analyzed. Finally, a repurposing was proposed to revitalize unused closed schools, and when the use was changed to a dormitory and all retrofit technologies were applied, the building energy consumption was reduced by 83%.

The Churning in the Flogging of ʿUmayra: Or, Towards a History of Masturbation in Premodern Islamic Law

Abstract This article traces juristic debates on the ethics of masturbation from the formative period of Islamic law to the early nineteenth century. I document the appearance of discussions of the practice in the earliest extant sources and explore how masturbation figures in the Sunnī and Šīʿī ḥadīṯ corpora with attention to regional patterns of dissemination. I also address the terminology used by jurists and point to material in encyclopaedias, adab and other works where relevant, and include some comparative observations from other cultures. My overall findings include the fact of clear regional patterns of opinion across the amṣār (garrison cities) in the early period and an unmistakable increase in “conservatism” on sexual matters with the consolidation of the legal schools (maḏāhib), as well as a clear distinction between Sunnī and Šīʿī views on the practice. I conclude by attempting to explain the relatively low visibility of masturbation in legal sources and to account for the doctrinal shift more generally.

텍스트 마이닝을 활용한 소규모학교 언론 담론 분석

Objectives This study attempted to clarify the substance of the media discourse surrounding small schools through media report analysis on small schools that occurred due to the decrease in the school-age population and have become a continuous issue. Methods 48 media outlets were selected through BigKines, and 7,489 media articles were analyzed based on relevance, etc., and duplicates and meaningless words were deleted from the basic research data. The data are classified based on the overall period and small school policy period through data preprocessing, and then keyword analysis and topic modeling are performed. Results First, looking at the trend of media reports, it became generally frequent until 2012, and the amount of media reports has since decreased. In addition, it was confirmed that the amount of media coverage increased due to the influence of the education policy of the Ministry of Education. Second, as a result of keyword analysis, there was a difference between the simple frequency and the distribution of keywords considering TF-IDF. Specifically, considering the distribution considering TF-DIF, ‘consolidation’ appeared as the word with the highest frequency, and a difference between keywords was found between the government-led small school integration period and the city-province-centered period. Third, as a result of topic modeling analysis, a total of 7 topics appeared in the entire period. In addition, the topic of ‘small school integration’ continued to appear regardless of the timing of the small school policy. Finally, as a result of analyzing recent trends, it was compressed into five topics. Conclusions The discourse that continues to appear in the media discourse of small schools is the consolidation of small schools. This can be said to have partially limited the education ministry's view of small schools to ‘consolidation’ when media companies cited press releases from the Ministry of Education and reduced them.

A Monument to Medieval Syrian Book Culture: The Library of Ibn ‘Abd al-Hadi

A Monument to Medieval Syrian Book Culture: The Library of Ibn ‘Abd al-Hadi

Child education-induced migration and its impact on the economic behaviors of migrated households in China

ABSTRACT Using the 2011–2013 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, this paper utilizes the quarter of the year in which a child was born as an instrumental variable to measure child education shock and explores its impact on migrated households. We only find significant education-induced migration among boys, which we attribute to son preference in China. Due to child education-induced migration, the per capita household consumption increases by 56.7%, the savings rate decreases by 40.3%, and remittances sent home decline by about 1.3 monthly household incomes, however, there are no effects on income, food consumption, and house rent. After exploring the mechanisms underlying child education-induced migration, we find that children migrate with their parents are less likely to pursue a better education in urban areas. Because of the closure and consolidation of rural primary schools, children are forced to migrate due to their education needs. The accessibility of primary schools in urban areas is also responsible for migration decisions regarding children. This paper facilitates understanding of how Hukou influences gender inequality in China. We also provide evidence to show that the segregation of the education system through Hukou is a possible explanation for the low consumption rate of migrants.

A sustainable decision‐making framework for school consolidation policy

AbstractIndia has a large number of schools to ensure good accessibility for students even in sparsely populated regions. However, in publicly funded education systems, governments need to address the trade‐off between accessibility and resources for desired amenities in many schools. Over the last few years, several state governments in India have consolidated schools. School consolidation is the process of closing some existing schools and reinstating their operations in other functioning, appropriately located schools, without opening any new schools. Within a state or even within a district, different regions have specific requirements based on enrolment and the spatial distribution of schools. Hence, the one‐size‐fits‐all approach of a single optimization model to consolidate schools may not provide acceptable solutions for all. The current study proposes and analyses several approaches to school consolidation decision‐making that consider the stakeholders’ needs. The aim is to provide tractable models based on median and coverage principles to help formulate sustainable school consolidation policies. Further improvements in the policies adopted by different states can be achieved using these models. The results of the case study indicate that utilization remains unaffected with the addition of accessibility requirements, and transfer outside the administrative boundaries yields better results in terms of additional travel distance and number of schools closed. The models can also be applied in several other service facility merger contexts with minor alterations.

소규모학교와 지역사회 융합방안의 해외사례 분석과 시사점

The purpose of the study is to collect and analyze cases in the United States and Japan on the convergence of small schools and local communities, and to obtain implications for Korea In order to achieve the purpose, the relationship and convergence between small schools and local communities, and the cases of the United States and Japan were collected and analyzed. The results are as follows. First, in the case of the United States, the local manpower pool was actively used and parents’ school education support was also active. In particular, by encouraging students to actively and voluntarily participate in the school education program, parents made efforts to support their children’s education to induce the participation of local residents. Second, in the case of Japan, projects were implemented to support the regeneration of small schools within the local community and to create a village school after the consolidation and abolition of small schools. Third, as ways for convergence between small schools and local communities, a win-win principle and strategy between small schools and village education communities were adopted, and as a community hub, it is necessary to play an important role in terms of educational administration, curriculum operation and student support, and the local community. The establishment of cooperative governance between education administration and general administration, and mutual understanding and communication and consensus formation among local community residents, parents as well as students, education authority, local governments, and school teachers are important for successful convergence of small schools and local communities.

School Closures and Rural Population Decline*

AbstractSince 1998, more than 6,000 public schools have closed in rural U.S. counties. Very little research considers how these school closures impact the future growth (or decline) of rural communities. Given rural schools' importance to parents, local labor markets, and civic life, closures could trigger or reinforce population loss. On the other hand, the configuration of schools may simply be a consequence of population loss and not a cause. This paper tests these hypotheses using records from the Common Core of Data (CCD) and U.S. Census. Employing an instrumental variable analysis that exploits exogenous variation in school district boundaries and a difference‐in‐difference design that groups counties by propensity scores, I find that school closures induce population loss in many—but not all—cases. Specifically, counties with the lowest propensities to close schools experience the largest negative effects on population. This finding suggests that policymakers often overlook potentially important unintended consequences of school consolidation in rural communities.

Fewer, better pathways for all? Intersectional impacts of rural school consolidation in China’s minority regions

Primary school consolidation--the closure of small community schools or their mergers into larger, better-resourced schools--is emerging as a significant policy response to changing demographics in middle income countries with large rural populations. In China, large-scale consolidation took place in the early 21st century. Because officially-recognized minority populations disproportionately reside in rural and remote areas, minority students were among those at elevated risk of experiencing school consolidation. We analyze heterogeneous effects of consolidation on educational attainment and reported national language ability in China by exploiting variations in closure timing across villages and cohorts captured in a 2011 survey of provinces and autonomous regions with substantial minority populations. We consider heterogeneous treatment effects across groups defined at the intersections of minority status, gender, and community ethnic composition and socioeconomic status. Compared to villages with schools, villages whose schools had closed reported that the schools students now attended were better resourced, less likely to offer minority language of instruction, more likely to have Han teachers, farther away, and more likely to require boarding. Much more than Han youth, ethnic minority youth were negatively affected by closure, in terms of its impact on both educational attainment and written Mandarin facility. However, significant penalties accruing to minority youth occurred only in the poorest villages. Penalties were generally heavier for girls, but in the most ethnically segregated minority villages, boys from minority families were highly vulnerable to closure effects on attainment and written Mandarin facility. Results show that intersections of minority status, gender, and community characteristics can delineate significant heterogeneities in policy impacts.

CLASSIFICATION OF PUBLIC PRIMARY AND JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL NUMBER’S TREND (1960-2016) IN CHUGOKU REGION

This paper aims to explain the time and regional feature of primary and junior high school consolidation process, after regulating the relation of transition of the number of schools and consolidation based on the database about the number of students of primary and junior high school and closed schools in 1960-2016 in Chugoku region. By the typification of schools transition, they were classified into five at the increase type of primary and junior high schools, sustainment type, the junior high school reduction type, the primary school reduction type, and the primary and junior high schools reduction type.

‘To be included among people’: families’ perceptions of schooling and contingent negotiations in a rural Tibetan community in China

ABSTRACT State schooling is currently transforming Tibetans’ perceptions and everyday experiences in Western China. Based on interviews with rural Tibetan parents and grandparents, and using subjectification as an analytical concept, this paper argues that schooling, alongside socio-economic changes, powerfully shapes the subjectivities of Tibetan parents and grandparents. Against their own sense of exclusion, they justified their support of schooling with recourse to promises of state schooling for their children to ‘be included among the people’ through social mobility. Set in the context of the School Consolidation Policy(SCP), this study illustrates the ‘double directionality’ of this subjectification process where participants were made into as well as becoming certain kinds of subjects through navigations of their social arena. Trivialising the SCP’s challenging implications, participants supported schooling for the perceived better quality education under the SCP. Meanwhile, they were making contingent negotiations to ensure children learn Tibetan culture and language.