Did You Know?

Poverty is both a cause and a consequence of family residential mobility.

Informed by an earlier study of student mobility within upstate New York that found pronounced levels of student turnover, especially in lower resource districts, PRI affiliate Kai Schafft conducted a follow-up single district case study that focused on the causes, incidence, and spatial patterns of student movement.

In this resource-poor rural district with an annual turnover rate of nearly 30 percent, Schafft found that between 75 and 80 percent of student moves were accounted for by transfers between upstate districts with an average move distance of only 11 miles. Interviews with 22 low income parents of mobile children showed that these families lived in an average of six different residences over a five year period, with some respondents having lived in as many as 13 places. The families interviewed had made a total of 109 residential changes over a 5 year period resulting in 166 separate school transfers by their children.

Overwhelmingly, the movement was not opportunity-driven, but rather a consequence of social and economic insecurity and lack of safe and affordable housing. Such movement was found to be both a consequence and a cause of social instability among poor families, in particular, reducing school attachment and academic success among mobile students and imposing significant administrative and fiscal burdens on schools.

Schafft, along with a colleague from the University of Vermont, Dr. Kieran Killeen, has just received a grant from the Research Foundation of State University of New York to conduct further follow up work in 2007 on this issue.

Total Enters and Exits by Month, Compared to Total Student Turnover

From Schafft, K. A. (2006). Poverty, residential mobility, and student transiency within a rural New York school district. Rural Sociology, 71(2), 212-231. Used by permission of the publisher.

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