Where Children Live and Where They Learn: Spatial Inequality in Access to Schools in Peri-Urban Areas
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Abstract
Access to school is often measured through enrolment rates or the number of facilities available within an administrative area. Those measures say little about whether children living at the urban edge can reach a suitable school without carrying a heavier daily burden than children in better served locations. This article reviewed recent research on school distribution, home-to-school mobility, and residence-based admission in order to examine how spatial inequality takes shape in peri-urban areas. An integrative literature review was conducted using peer-reviewed journal articles. The studies were read for evidence on school location, travel conditions, settlement growth, school capacity, and zoning. The review found that school provision often adjusts more slowly than peripheral residential growth. Distance also became unequal through road networks, transport availability, and differences in household resources. Admission policies could improve access, but their effect remained limited when school locations and capacities are already uneven. School accessibility was therefore better understood as a relation between residence, mobility, infrastructure, and institutional rules rather than as distance alone.
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