Permanent school closures and crime: evidence from Scotland

In this article we study the effects of permanent school closures on crime. We leverage the closure of over 300 schools in Scotland between the school years 2006/07 and 2018/19, and employ a staggered difference-in-differences design on a matched sample. We find that neighbourhoods affected by school closures experience a reduction in crime of about 9% of a standard deviation, relative to areas where schools remained open. This effect is mainly driven by a reduction in violent and property crimes. We provide evidence on several mechanisms explaining the negative crime effect, such as changes in neighbourhood composition and reductions in school-level segregation

Early years multi‐grade classes and pupil attainment

We study the effect of exposure to older, more experienced, classroom peers resulting from the widespread use of multi-grade classes in Scottish primary schools. For identification, we exploit that a class-planning algorithm quasi-randomly assigns groups of pupils to multi-grade classes. We find that school-starters benefit from exposure to second-graders in measures of numeracy and literacy. We do not find any evidence that these gains are driven by smaller class sizes or more parental input. While short-lived, these benefits accrue independent of socioeconomic background, to boys and girls alike, and our results provide no evidence that they come at the expense of older peers from the preceding cohort

Rurality, socio-economic disadvantage and educational mobility: a Scottish case study

Rurality is known to be associated with a number of weaker educational outcomes from lower attainment through to lower social mobility. This is why so much policy and practitioner focus has been directed at addressing the rurality gap in educational outcomes. In this paper, we use pupil-level data for Scotland to contribute to two dimensions of this problem. First, we explore the relationship between socio-economic deprivation and educational mobility across urban and rural primary schools in Scotland. This provides new insights on the issue of rural disadvantage. Second, we use our dataset to explore the socio-economic makeup of urban and rural schools in Scotland documenting that schools located in the highest and lowest SIMD areas are more homogeneous than those in the middle. This is important for the classification of schools in targeting educational interventions to improve social mobility

Compositional dependence of the elastic constants and the lattice parameter of Al(x)Ga(1-x)As

Near infrared Brillouin scattering and high resolution x-ray diffraction is used for a precise determination of the elastic constants and the relaxed lattice parameters of Al(x)Ga(1-x)As epitaxial layers (0.1 <= x <= 1.0). The composition of the layers is specified by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy, photoluminescence, and Raman spectroscopy. For the elastic constants we get a composition independent value of 118.9 ¤ 0.7 GPa for C11, a nonlinear increase in C12and a linear decrease in C44 with increasing AI composition. The Poisson ratio shows a linear increase for x < 0.8 and a downward bowing for higher Al concentrations to the AlAs value of v=0.325¤0.004. The effect of lattice mismatch induced strain on the elastic properties is investigated on free standing epitaxial layers. The trend in ionicity from the GaAs to the AlAs bonds are deduced from phenomenological expressions for the bond-bending and bond-stretching forces which are calculated from the elastic constants. The lattice parameters of the unstrained crystals are obtained from the measured full metric of the tetragonally strained layers and the Poisson ratios. The combined results of Brillouin scattering, x-ray diffraction, and compositional analysis confirm the deviation of the Al(x)Ga(1-x)As lattice parameter from Vegard's law, and provides the first direct and accurate determination of the quadratic bowing parameter