Introduction
School size has been an issue of interest to scholars, educators, and policymakers alike for decades, although the perceived costs and benefits have changed over time. On the one hand, larger schools have often been viewed favorably due to the benefits of economies of scale that come from large size, including enhanced diversity of course offerings, lower per-pupil costs with respect to staffing, and greater variety of extracurricular and social opportunities for students (Robertson 2007). On the other hand, the benefits of small schools primarily have been viewed as relating to the closer connection that students form with their teachers, school administrators, and peers. Various studies have offered evidence to support both sets of findings, leading to a complex assessment of whether and how school size “matters” for student outcomes. Taken together, the body of research on school size has not yielded clear, definitive conclusions about the effects of size. Rather, the...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Andrews, M., Duncombe, W., & Yinger, J. (2002). Revisiting economics of size in American education: Are we any closer to a concensus? Economics of Education Review, 21, 245–262.
Angus, D. L., & Mirel, J. E. (1999). The failed promise of the American high school 1890–1995. New York: Teachers College Press.
Archibald, S. (2006). Narrowing in on educational resources that do affect student achievement. Peabody Journal of Education, 81 (4), 23–42.
Barker, R., & Gump, P. (1964). Big school, small school: High school size and student behavior. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Breaking ranks: Changing an American institution. (1996). Reston: National Association of Secondary School Principals.
Bryk, A., & Schneider, B. (2002). Trust in schools: A core resource for improvement. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Bryk, A., & Thum, Y. M. (1989). The effects of high school organization on dropping out: An exploratory investigation. American Educational Research Journal, 26 (3), 353–383.
Cotton, K. (2002). New small learning communities: Findings from recent literature. Portland: Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory.
Eccles, J. S., & Midgley, C. (1989). Stage/environment fit: Developmentally appropriate classrooms for early adolescents (Vol. 3). New York: Academic.
Education, U. S. D. o. (2006). Smaller learning communities program. http://www.ed.gov/programs/slcp/index.html. Accessed 23 Oct 2006.
Elmore, R. F. (2006). Large-scale improvement in urban public school systems: The next generation of reform. In J. Simmons (Ed.), Breaking through: Transforming urban school districts. New York: Teachers College Press.
Fine, M. (1991). Framing dropouts: Notes on the politics of an urban public high school. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Fine, M. (1994). Chartering urban school reform. In M. Fine (Ed.), Chartering urban school reform (pp. 5–30). New York: Teachers College Press.
Finn, J., & Achilles, C. (1999). Tennesee’s class size study: Findings, implications, and misconceptions. Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 21, 97–109.
Finn, J. D., & Rock, D. A. (1997). Academic success among students at risk for school failure. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 82 (2), 221–234 [Article].
Fredricks, J. A., Blumenfeld, P. C., & Paris, A. H. (2004). School engagement: Potential of the concept, state of the evidence. Review of Educational Research, 74 (1), 59–109 [Review].
Garbino, J. (1980). Some thoughts on school size and its effects on adolescent development. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 9 (1), 19–31.
Goodlad, J. I. (1984). A place called school: Prospects for the future. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Gootman, E. (2007). Taking middle schoolers out of the middle. New York Times.
Gutman, L. M., & Midgley, C. (2000). The role of protective factors in supporting the academic achievement of poor African American students during the middle school transition. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 29 (2), 223–248.
Hallinan, M. T., & Sorensen, A. B. (1985). Class size, ability group size, and student achievement. American Journal of Education, 94 (1), 71–89.
Hanushek, E. A. (1999a). Some findings from an independent investigation of the Tennessee STAR experiment and from other investigations of class size effects. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 21 (2), 143–163.
Hanushek, E. A. (Ed.). (1999b). The evidence on class size. Washington: Brookings Institution.
Hanushek, E. A. (2002). The failure of input-based schooling policies. Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Huebner, T. A. (2005). Rethinking high school: An introduction to New York City’s experience. San Francisco: West Ed for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Iatarola, P., Schwartz, A. E., Stiefel, L., & Chellman, C. C. (2008). Small schools, large districts: Small-school reform and New York City’s students. Teachers College Record, 110 (9), 1837–1878.
Jessor, R., Turbin, M. S., & Costa, F. M. (1998). Protective factors in adolescent health behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75 (3), 788–800 [Proceedings Paper].
Kuziemko, I. (2006). Using shocks to school enrollment to estimate the effect of school size on student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 25 (1), 63–75 [Article].
Lee, V. E. (2000). School size and the organization of secondary schools. In M. Hallinan (Ed.), Handbook of the sociology of education (pp. 327–344). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
Lee, V. E., & Burkam, D. T. (2003). Dropping out of high school: The role of school organization and structure. American Educational Research Journal, 40 (2), 353–393 [Article].
Lee, V., & Loeb, S. (2000). School size in Chicago elementary schools: Effects on teachers’ attitudes and students’ achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 37 (1), 3–31.
Lee, V. E., & Ready, D. D. (2007). Schools within schools: Possibilities and pitfalls of high school reform. New York: Teachers College Press.
Lee, V., & Smith, J. (1997). High school size: Which works best and for whom? Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 19 (3), 205–227.
Lee, V. E., Smerdon, B. A., Alfeld-Liro, C., & Brown, S. L. (2000). Inside small and large high schools: Curriculum and social relations. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 22 (2), 147–171.
Lee, V. E., Ready, D. D., & Johnson, D. J. (2001). The difficulty of identifying rare samples to study: The case of high schools divided into schools-within-schools. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23 (4), 365–379.
Leithwood, K., & Jantzi, D. (2009). A review of empirical evidence about school size effects: A policy perspective. Review of Educational Research, 79 (1), 464–490 [Review].
McNeal, R. (1995). Extracurricular activities and high school dropout. Sociology of Education, 68, 62–81 (January).
Meier, D. (1998). Can the odds be changed? In M. Fine & J. I. Somerville (Eds.), Small schools, big Imaginations: A creative look at urban public schools (pp. 85–92). Chicago: Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform.
Monk, D. H., & Haller, E. J. (1993). Predictors of high school academic course offerings: The role of school size. American Educational Research Journal, 30 (1), 3–21.
Murphy, K., & Alexander, P. (2002). What counts: The predictive powers of subject matter knowledge, strategic processing, and interest in domain-specific performance. Journal of Experimental Education, 70 (3), 197–214.
National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. (2004). Engaging schools: Fostering high school students’ motivation to learn. Committee on increasing high school students’ engagement and motivation to learn. Washington: The National Academies Press.
Newman, F. (1992). Student engagement and achievement in American secondary schools. New York: Teachers College Press.
Oakes, J. (1985). Keeping track: How schools structure inequality. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Oakes, J., & Guiton, G. (1995). Matchmaking: The dynamics of high school tracking decisions. American Educational Research Journal, 32 (1), 3–33.
Powell, A. G., Farrar, E., & Cohen, D. K. (1985). The shopping mall high school: Winners and losers in the educational marketplace. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Raywid, M. A., & Osiyama, L. (2000). Musings in the wake of Columbine. Phi Delta Kappan, 81 (6), 444–449.
Ready, D. D., & Lee, V. (2004). Educational equity and school structure: School size, overcrowding, and schools-within-schools. Teachers College Record, 106 (10), 1989–2014.
Ready, D. D., & Lee, V. (2006). Optimal context size in elementary schools: Disentangling the effects of class size and school size. Brookings Papers on Education Policy – 2006/2007, pp. 99–135. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press
Ready, D. D., & Lee, V. (2008). Choice, equity, and the schools-within-schools reform. Teachers College Record, 110 (9), 1930–1958.
Robertson, F. W. (2007). Economies of scale for large school districts: A national study with local implications. Social Science Journal, 44 (4), 620–629 [Proceedings Paper].
Rumberger, R. W. (1995). Dropping out of middle school – a multilevel analysis of students and schools. American Educational Research Journal, 32 (3), 583–625 [Proceedings Paper].
Rumberger, R. W., & Thomas, S. L. (2000). The distribution of dropout and turnover rates among urban and suburban high schools. Sociology of Education, 73 (1), 39–67.
Schreiber, J. B. (2002). Institutional and student factors and their influence on advanced mathematics achievement. Journal of Educational Research, 95 (5), 274–286 [Article].
Sizer, T. R. (1992). Horace’s school: Redesigning the American high school. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Smart schools/Smart kids: A proposal to the Annenberg Foundation to create the Chicago school reform collaboratives. (1994). Chicago: Chicago Annenberg Challenge.
Stevenson, D. L., Schiller, K. S., & Schneider, B. (1994). Sequences of opportunities for learning. Sociology of Education, 67 (3), 184–198.
Targeted literature review of major constructs and their components: Evaluating the national school district and network grants program. (2002). Palo Alto/Menlo Park: SRI International and American Institutes for Research.
The child development project: Summary of the project and findings from three evaluation studies. (1998). Oakland: Developmental Studies Center.
Theroux, K. (2007). Small schools in the big city: Promising results validate reform efforts in New York City high schools. Carnegie Reporter, 4(3). New York, NY: Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Tyack, D., & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering toward utopia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wehlage, G., & Rutter, R. (1987). Dropping out: How much do schools contribute to the problem? In G. Natriello (Ed.), School dropouts: Patterns & policies. New York: Teachers College.
Weiss, C. C., & Kipnes, L. (2006). Reexamining middle school effects: A comparison of middle grades students in middle schools and K-8 schools. American Journal of Education, 112 (2), 239–272.
Weiss, C. C., Carolan, B., & Baker-Smith, E. C. (2009). Big school, small school: (Re)Testing assumptions about high school size, school engagement and mathematics achievement. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39 (2), 163–176.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this entry
Cite this entry
Weiss, C., Baker-Smith, C., Ohta, V.G. (2011). School Size. In: Levesque, R.J.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Adolescence. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1695-2_250
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1695-2_250
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-1694-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-1695-2
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science