Alan G. Phipps

Empirical applications of structuration theory

This study reviews and classifies fifty‐three potential empirical applications of structuration theory in geography and the social sciences. These were retrieved using a computerized keyword search of articles and books published in the English language between 1982 and 2000. The five dimensions for classifying these studies were (1) a representable type of social behaviour, (2) a methodological bracketing, (3) using specific data, (4) a treatment of time‐space, and (5) an interpretation of a duality of structure. Thirteen studies were classified as the most productive applications of structuration theory because they either tested or illustrated a duality of structure. On the one hand, the substantive areas of these were more diverse than originally envisioned. On the other hand, they were interpretations of the ongoing relatively formal social interactions between individuals in modern communities, families and organizations, and this confirms the theorys more circumscribed ontological scope as implied by the critics.

A rational economic analysis of public-school closings in Saskatoon

The Saskatoon public board closed eleven elementary schools and one high school during the period 1978–88. The finding from two economic models is that the school board did not act as a discriminating rational economic decisionmaker in closing two elementary schools located in a case-study neighbourhood. The postponement of the closures resulted in an annual subsidy to the remaining students and their families for an amount eventually equivalent to 40% of the actual savings. The school board thus incorporated noneconomic factors into its decisions in anticipation of the community reactions to a closure.

How to Fight School Closures

Permanent closures of neighbourhood elementary and secondary schools first noticeably occurred in the 1970s in North America and Western Europe. At that time, however, nobody could have predicted how many schools would subsequently be closed – and will still be closed – due to demographic, economic and educational changes. Nobody could also have anticipated that sometimes hundreds of socially-mobilized parents or guardians or residents would consistently fail to save their schools from closure, when they re-invented arguments and strategies that they did not know had already failed elsewhere. I begin this study by clarifying why residents become upset with a school closure, and go on to speculate why some will fight a closure, whereas other similarlyupset residents may not become involved. I review the economic reasons for closing a school, especially cataloguing the types of costs and savings data and information that school boards may not publicise, and that residents may need to request or provide for themselves. After however showing that economics alone will rarely ever keep open a school, I put human faces on the officials in institutional organizations who are closing schools, and with whom residents will be fighting. I then detail and analyse the public and private strategies and activities of residents that may or may not reprieve their school. Finally, I introduce a new fight for residents about the future alternative use of a school after its closure.