From Empirical Questioning to Spatiotemporal Modeling - Spatio-temporal Approaches - page 61

2.3.4.1. Step 1: construction of the objects and their properties from a multilevel
perspective
The objects to mobilize in order to meet this questioning fall into several levels:
the students, the schools and the spatial units (municipalities and school districts
mapping). The high schools as well as the spatial units are fixed objects ( endurant
entities), whose attributes and relationships can change over time. A school may
appear or disappear, its social composition may evolve relatively to the students who
attend it. Regarding students, we follow their characteristics (social, gender and
academic success) as well as their mobility from two angles: as a relation between
the student's place of residence and his or her place of schooling; as a change of
school during the course of the student's studies. Each of these changes at the
student level contributes to the change in profile of the school.
2.3.4.2. Step 2: representing and exploring the pupils' choices of school and the
consequences of these choices on the social composition of schools and their
evolution
Figure 2.13 illustrates the spatial and temporal relationships at stake between the
student at its place of residence and the school he/she is going to.
Figure 2.13. Links between the pupils' movements and higher levels change
A few examples of questions are given that will guide the exploration of the
database and that will involve spatial and temporal dimensions as previously. The
special feature of these queries is to link different geographical levels and to
mobilize spatial relationships:
- how many students change school during their schooling without changing
residence? The students may change school and may change residence. The
challenge is to relate the two events;
- what is the evolution of the number of pupils attending a school outside of the
district they belong to? Students move, the school district mapping changes, but this
question is specifically about the evolution of the relationship between the pupils