Out of Touch - Potential of Spatial Structure Indicators to Analyse Social and Educational Inequality |
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| Coordinator 1 | Mr Jochen Wirsing (Deutsches Jugendinstitut e.V.) |
| Coordinator 2 | Mr Andreas Fischer (Deutsches Jugendinstitut e.V.) |
The study of spatial variance is an important part of empirical social research. It plays a major role regarding survey design issues, influencing for example sampling strategies and field operations among others. But regional variance also matters for substantial research interests, since spatial structures affect a great variety of social and educational opportunities and provisions. The reduction of spatial disparities has constitutional status both within the European Union and within the nation states (Dangschat, 2018, p. 425), and the German Grundgesetz stipulates the creation of equal living conditions (GG, Art. 72, 2022).
Against this background, it is surprising how little research projects apply spatial structure measurements in their study of social and educational inequality. Two reasons seem most likely. For one, many available indicators are not up-to-date. In the German case, the Bundesinstitut für Bau-, Stadt- und Raumforschung (BBSR) calculates the so-called Raumtypen (space types) (BBSR, 2020), which are based on data from 2009. The Thünen Institute calculates a numerical index for ruralness (Küpper, 2016), which includes data going back as far as 2011 in some cases. Moreover, available indicators are not easy to acquire. Fees often depend on data richness, spatial coverage and resolution, making this data rather expensive.
As a result, research on social and educational inequality suffers in several regards: Most important, there is a great lack of research taking regional variation into account. Second, construction rules of spatial structure indicators are often kept secret, contradicting good practice in Open Science. Finally, there are few replication studies comparing strengths and weaknesses of different indicators. The session aims to bring together papers studying social and educational inequality applying different (innovative) spatial structure indicators to evaluate their value for inequality research and possible ways forward which are in line with Open Science practices.