Geo‐spatial analyses in education research: the critical challenge and methodological possibilities

Abstract The usefulness of spatial perspectives in education research is well known, particularly in fields such as school choice that are operationalised in multiple institutional, demographic, and local geographies. But the modes of spatial inquiry, even as they can potentially lend themselves to integrated research strategies, tend to be fragmented and isolated, failing to take into account multiple dimensions of contextual factors. Our purpose is to provide critical deliberations on geo‐spatial methods in school choice research and suggest an integrative approach to enhance research on school choice from a geographic perspective. This paper first demonstrates the linkage of spatial approaches to school choice, and then surveys geo‐spatial research as typically leveraged on this issue. We argue that there are inherent limitations to the typical conceptions of space in geo‐spatial analyses and discuss two of the major challenges to these conceptions as provided by critical theorists and geographers. But we also point out that these challenges suggest alternatives that themselves have serious shortcomings. The concluding discussion sets out some of the possibilities of a more integrated approach to spatial inquiry in education research, and school choice more specifically.