Place is an inescapable aspect of daily life and is intimately linked to our life experiences. An expanding body of research has investigated how place shapes the “geography of opportunity” as well as students’, families’, and stakeholders’ experiences in and around schools. While researchers have begun to investigate the spatial context of education, the notion of place remains somewhat underconceptualized in education research. This chapter draws on an interdisciplinary review of 60 empirical, education-related studies to understand how researchers have accounted for place, the theoretical and conceptual frames in which they ground their work, and their data collection methods. We find that researchers have used place inquiry and spatial methods to investigate diverse education-related phenomena, such as school choice and teaching and learning. Beyond using place to identify and describe inequalities, we argue that place inquiry and spatial methodologies can strengthen the potential of education research to disrupt systems of power and oppression by also advancing our knowledge of the nature of and potential solutions to educational injustice.
This study leverages data collected from a study of Baltimore's 21st Century School Buildings Program to understand the potential of a school facilities investment to catalyze community development. We leverage a school-community partnership typology to examine partnerships at 21CSBP schools in three neighborhoods. We found that schools provided critical resources to their school and place-based communities and were linked to community development efforts. We argue that community development partnership models are possible when schools and their partners view their work as going beyond the schoolhouse door. The study extends the field's understanding of the interdependence of school and neighborhood improvement.
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