Meredith P Richards
Biographic Data
| ID | 4217605 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Meredith P Richards |
| GIVEN NAMES | Meredith P |
| FAMILY NAME | Richards |
| SIGNATURE | RICHARDS M P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Southern Methodist University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1606-5023 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 143 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Educational Outcomes of Natural Disaster Versus Conventional Pathways to Homelessness
Students often become homeless due to conventional, economic instability; however, they also become homeless from natural disasters. We provide initial empirical evidence comparing these pathways to homelessness in the context of Houston and Hurricane Harvey. Analyzing 7 years of data on 321,439 students using a comparative interrupted time-series approach incorporating student-level fixed effects, we find students who became homeless due to Harv…
Same Storm, Different Boat
Due to climate change, natural disasters are increasingly frequent and severe. Moreover, they may have profound educational consequences for students, hindering their attendance, achievement, and wellbeing – particularly for those experiencing homelessness. Yet there is a dearth of research on student homelessness in the context of natural disasters. In this study, we use an environmental justice lens to explicate how student homelessness interse…
Mothering in double crisis
Foregrounding the “Home” in Student Homelessness
Students experiencing homelessness spend their nights in various settings, including shelters, with friends/families (doubled-up), motels/hotels, and unsheltered contexts. Yet there is limited quantitative research on how educational outcomes vary by residential context. We analyze data from over 400,000 students in Houston Independent School District from 2012–2013 to 2016–2017 via fixed-effects models and coarsened exact matching techniques. We…
It's More Complicated Than It Seems
COVID-19 has necessitated innovation in many parts of our lives and qualitative research is no exception, as in-person qualitative data collection has been complicated by the constraints of social distancing and the prioritization of participants' and researchers' safety. Consequently, virtual methods have quickly gained traction. However, there is little research that comprehensively explores the range of practical, rigorous, and ethical conside…
Metropolitan Public School District Segregation by Race and Income, 2000–2011
Background Recent work has documented declining public school racial/ethnic segregation, as students have become more evenly distributed across schools and districts since the turn of the century. However, we know little about how declines in school racial/ethnic segregation have affected students of different levels of economic resources. While some evidence suggests that class may be supplanting race as the defining force in structuring residen…
The Racial/Ethnic and Socioeconomic Dynamics of Public School District Secession, 1995–2015
Background Scholars have increasingly expressed concern about a new secessionist movement, grounded in a doctrine of localism and facilitated by permissive state policies regarding the formation of new school districts. Critics contend that school district secessions threaten to exacerbate patterns of segregation and inequality in schools. Although case studies have provided valuable detail on the processes and racial/ethnic dynamics of secession…
Measuring Segregation in a Multiracial Era
Background Despite accounting for 3% of the student population, multiracial students are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the United States. Aligning with new federal guidelines, in 2008, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) revised its single-race reporting scheme for the Common Core of Data (CCD), permitting students to identify as two or more races (i.e., multiracial). Study Objective The addition of a multiracial repo…
The Gerrymandering of School Attendance Zones and the Segregation of Public Schools
In this study, I employ geospatial techniques to assess the impact of school attendance zone “gerrymandering” on the racial/ethnic segregation of schools, using a large national sample of 15,290 attendance zones in 663 districts. I estimate the effect of gerrymandering on school diversity and school district segregation by comparing the racial/ethnic characteristics of existing attendance zones to those of counterfactual zones expected in the abs…
From Resegregation to Reintegration
Considerable attention has been devoted to the resegregation of public schools over the 1990s. No research to date, however, has examined change in school segregation since 2000. Using the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD), we examine longitudinal trends in racial/ethnic segregation in 350 U.S. metropolitan areas from 1993 to 2009. We find that worsening segregation over the 1990s has given way to a period …
School Choice and Stratification in a Regional Context
Despite the growing popularity of interdistrict choice plans over the past decade, the policy assumptions underlying their adoption have been subjected to very little empirical research. This study situates school choice within one metropolitan region, Denver, and examines the ways in which choice patterns relate to existing patterns of stratification between school districts. This regional focus offers insight into the patterns of interdistrict …
It's More Complicated Than It Seems
COVID-19 has necessitated innovation in many parts of our lives and qualitative research is no exception, as in-person qualitative data collection has been complicated by the constraints of social distancing and the prioritization of participants' and researchers' safety. Consequently, virtual methods have quickly gained traction. However, there is little research that comprehensively explores the range of practical, rigorous, and ethical conside…
From Resegregation to Reintegration
Considerable attention has been devoted to the resegregation of public schools over the 1990s. No research to date, however, has examined change in school segregation since 2000. Using the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD), we examine longitudinal trends in racial/ethnic segregation in 350 U.S. metropolitan areas from 1993 to 2009. We find that worsening segregation over the 1990s has given way to a period …
The Gerrymandering of School Attendance Zones and the Segregation of Public Schools
In this study, I employ geospatial techniques to assess the impact of school attendance zone “gerrymandering” on the racial/ethnic segregation of schools, using a large national sample of 15,290 attendance zones in 663 districts. I estimate the effect of gerrymandering on school diversity and school district segregation by comparing the racial/ethnic characteristics of existing attendance zones to those of counterfactual zones expected in the abs…
School Choice and Stratification in a Regional Context
Despite the growing popularity of interdistrict choice plans over the past decade, the policy assumptions underlying their adoption have been subjected to very little empirical research. This study situates school choice within one metropolitan region, Denver, and examines the ways in which choice patterns relate to existing patterns of stratification between school districts. This regional focus offers insight into the patterns of interdistrict …
Foregrounding the “Home” in Student Homelessness
Students experiencing homelessness spend their nights in various settings, including shelters, with friends/families (doubled-up), motels/hotels, and unsheltered contexts. Yet there is limited quantitative research on how educational outcomes vary by residential context. We analyze data from over 400,000 students in Houston Independent School District from 2012–2013 to 2016–2017 via fixed-effects models and coarsened exact matching techniques. We…
School Choice and Stratification in a Regional Context
Despite the growing popularity of interdistrict choice plans over the past decade, the policy assumptions underlying their adoption have been subjected to very little empirical research. This study situates school choice within one metropolitan region, Denver, and examines the ways in which choice patterns relate to existing patterns of stratification between school districts. This regional focus offers insight into the patterns of interdistrict …
From Resegregation to Reintegration
Considerable attention has been devoted to the resegregation of public schools over the 1990s. No research to date, however, has examined change in school segregation since 2000. Using the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD), we examine longitudinal trends in racial/ethnic segregation in 350 U.S. metropolitan areas from 1993 to 2009. We find that worsening segregation over the 1990s has given way to a period …
The Gerrymandering of School Attendance Zones and the Segregation of Public Schools
In this study, I employ geospatial techniques to assess the impact of school attendance zone “gerrymandering” on the racial/ethnic segregation of schools, using a large national sample of 15,290 attendance zones in 663 districts. I estimate the effect of gerrymandering on school diversity and school district segregation by comparing the racial/ethnic characteristics of existing attendance zones to those of counterfactual zones expected in the abs…
Metropolitan Public School District Segregation by Race and Income, 2000–2011
Background Recent work has documented declining public school racial/ethnic segregation, as students have become more evenly distributed across schools and districts since the turn of the century. However, we know little about how declines in school racial/ethnic segregation have affected students of different levels of economic resources. While some evidence suggests that class may be supplanting race as the defining force in structuring residen…
The Racial/Ethnic and Socioeconomic Dynamics of Public School District Secession, 1995–2015
Background Scholars have increasingly expressed concern about a new secessionist movement, grounded in a doctrine of localism and facilitated by permissive state policies regarding the formation of new school districts. Critics contend that school district secessions threaten to exacerbate patterns of segregation and inequality in schools. Although case studies have provided valuable detail on the processes and racial/ethnic dynamics of secession…
Measuring Segregation in a Multiracial Era
Background Despite accounting for 3% of the student population, multiracial students are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the United States. Aligning with new federal guidelines, in 2008, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) revised its single-race reporting scheme for the Common Core of Data (CCD), permitting students to identify as two or more races (i.e., multiracial). Study Objective The addition of a multiracial repo…
It's More Complicated Than It Seems
COVID-19 has necessitated innovation in many parts of our lives and qualitative research is no exception, as in-person qualitative data collection has been complicated by the constraints of social distancing and the prioritization of participants' and researchers' safety. Consequently, virtual methods have quickly gained traction. However, there is little research that comprehensively explores the range of practical, rigorous, and ethical conside…
Foregrounding the “Home” in Student Homelessness
Students experiencing homelessness spend their nights in various settings, including shelters, with friends/families (doubled-up), motels/hotels, and unsheltered contexts. Yet there is limited quantitative research on how educational outcomes vary by residential context. We analyze data from over 400,000 students in Houston Independent School District from 2012–2013 to 2016–2017 via fixed-effects models and coarsened exact matching techniques. We…
Mothering in double crisis
Educational Outcomes of Natural Disaster Versus Conventional Pathways to Homelessness
Students often become homeless due to conventional, economic instability; however, they also become homeless from natural disasters. We provide initial empirical evidence comparing these pathways to homelessness in the context of Houston and Hurricane Harvey. Analyzing 7 years of data on 321,439 students using a comparative interrupted time-series approach incorporating student-level fixed effects, we find students who became homeless due to Harv…
Same Storm, Different Boat
Due to climate change, natural disasters are increasingly frequent and severe. Moreover, they may have profound educational consequences for students, hindering their attendance, achievement, and wellbeing – particularly for those experiencing homelessness. Yet there is a dearth of research on student homelessness in the context of natural disasters. In this study, we use an environmental justice lens to explicate how student homelessness interse…
Sociology (9 works) · Geography (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies (7 works) · Demography (6 works) · School Choice and Performance (6 works) · Ethnic group (5 works) · Context (archaeology (4 works) · Demographic economics (4 works)