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Regional Contexts in Quantitative Educational Sociology

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Education, Space and Urban Planning

Abstract

In recent years, quantitative empirical researchers in the field of educational sociology have become increasingly interested in not only whether, but more importantly how exactly, regional contexts have a bearing on educational outcomes. However, these analyses often exhibit a tension between theoretical conceptualization on the one hand and operationalization of regional contexts on the other: while, on a theoretical level, regional contexts are seen as constituted by patterns of social interaction with blurred boundaries, in contextual analyses, they are typically operationalized as “absolute” (administrative) places that are independent of each other. Starting from a concept of space rooted in geography, I advocate for an understanding of regional contexts that takes into account spatial relations of social phenomena in terms of social interrelations and exchange. If such spatial interdependencies are present conventional hierarchical models become inadequate. I demonstrate the extent of spatial interdependencies by looking at the example of data on youth unemployment on the level of districts (Landkreise).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In sociology, the term “social space” is—following Bourdieu (1999)—also used as a socio-structural metaphor. This is not how I am using it here.

  2. 2.

    As researchers for data protection reasons is rarely provided with geo referenced personal data, social scientists generally have to limit their spatial analyses to a particular level of aggregation.

  3. 3.

    The commuting matrix is standardized, i.e., it specifies the percentage of commuters from region i into region j in relation to all commuters from region i. Thanks to Per Kropp from the Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB) at Nuremberg for providing these data.

  4. 4.

    The arrows connect the geographical centroids of the relevant administrative districts.

  5. 5.

    Moran’s I allows for values between −1 (perfect negative autocorrelation) and 1 (perfect positive autocorrelation).

  6. 6.

    Both variables are standardized.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Arts, Sociology, University of Siegen, Adolf-Reichwein-Str. 2, 57068, Siegen, Germany

    Alexandra Wicht

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  1. Alexandra Wicht
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Correspondence to Alexandra Wicht .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Urban and Regional Planning (ISR), Berlin Institute of Technology, Berlin, Germany

    Angela Million

  2. Urban and Regional Planning (ISR), Berlin Institute of Technology, Berlin, Germany

    Anna Juliane Heinrich

  3. Educational Science and Psychology, University of Siegen Educational Science and Psychology, Siegen, Germany

    Thomas Coelen

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Wicht, A. (2017). Regional Contexts in Quantitative Educational Sociology. In: Million, A., Heinrich, A., Coelen, T. (eds) Education, Space and Urban Planning. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38999-8_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-38999-8_29

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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