School amalgamation.

The words ‘amalgamation’ and ‘consolidation’ are used interchangeably in the literature. These terms are used to refer to the merging of two or more pre-existing schools into a single school or educational set-up [1]. Amalgamations have been described as both a positive resource management strategy and a threat to the livelihood of school communities [19,20]. The rationale given for enacting amalgamations includes improved resource provision for small rural schools, legislative changes and fiscal challenges within school boards, and demographic changes amongst local school-aged children [9,21,22]. For this review, changes to school set-ups are considered amalgamations where a minimum of two schools which previously operated independently are brought together to form a single institution.

In their rapid review of regional and rural school amalgamations, Eacott and Freeborn include evidence from studies on both school-level and district-level consolidations [1]. School districts refer to geographical boundaries which dictate the governance and administration of schools within a given area. The use of school districts is observed primarily in the United States [1,23,24]. While district consolidations share similarities with school consolidations in terms of their rationale, such as resource management and governance changes, fewer comparisons can be drawn at the student level. As district consolidations do not inherently involve the merging of school populations, studies focusing on district-level mergers will not be considered as meeting the definition criteria of school amalgamation. Studies which address outcomes of district mergers may still be included if these district mergers have resulted in subsequent school amalgamations.

Students.

For this review, students are defined as those enrolled in primary or secondary education. While the term ‘student’ can more broadly reflect those enrolled in third level or other forms of education, these definitions are beyond the scope of our review questions. There is no age parameter set in defining student populations as age ranges are expected to be uniform across childhood and adolescence given their educational stage.

LGBTQ+ identification.

For the purpose of this review, definitions of sexual or gender minority identities are derived from the American Psychological Association style guide [25]. The LGBTQ+ acronym is used when simultaneously referring to multiple sexual and gender minority groups [25]. Sexual orientation refers to both a person’s attraction to another person and the social categorisations that arise from this attraction [25]. A person may be defined as holding a minority sexual identity if their sexual orientation is not heterosexual. A person may be defined as holding a minority gender identity if their gender does not align with their sex assigned at birth [25]. Any variations in accounts of LGBTQ + identification among students will be reported in the final scoping review.

Wellbeing.

To address the impact of amalgamation from a psychological perspective, wellbeing is defined as both general perceptions of life satisfaction and mental health outcomes. General wellbeing and life satisfaction may relate to concepts such as quality of life, self-esteem, and happiness. Mental health outcomes relate more specifically to psychological distress, such as anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders.

Inclusion criteria.

1. Population: School-aged students who identify as LGBTQ+ and are involved in the amalgamation of primary or secondary schools.
2. Concept: The amalgamation of at least two pre-existing primary or secondary schools into one educational setting, and the impact of such amalgamations on the wellbeing of marginalised students.
3. Context: Primary or secondary schools which conduct in-person teaching and learning.
4. Published, peer-reviewed articles which contain original research, meta-analyses, systematic reviews, experimental research, case studies, or other quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-method approaches.
5. Articles must be published in peer-reviewed journals, either open-access or accessible through the related institution’s library agreements and repositories.
6. Due to language limitations within the research team, articles must be published in English.

Exclusion criteria.

1. Population: Students outside of primary or secondary-level education (e.g., those studying in third-level institutions), or those who do not identify as LGBTQ+ , or those who do not attend amalgamated schools.
2. Concept: Studies which focus on school amalgamation, but do not consider wellbeing-related outcomes or LGBTQ+ identification, or those which address similar concepts (e.g., school-district amalgamations) without reference to the amalgamation of actual schools.
3. Context: Third-level institutions, schools which solely employ online or otherwise distant teaching methods, schools which previously amalgamated but whose entire student population at the time of study had not enrolled until post-amalgamation.
4. Non-peer-reviewed articles or otherwise non-empirical studies, including book reviews, opinion pieces, theses, conference abstracts, and editorial letters.
5. Articles which are not openly accessible to the research team and/or contained in non-peer-reviewed journals or research repositories.
6. Studies published in languages other than English.

Data management.

Covidence will be used to manage data and citations throughout the review process. Articles identified using our search strategy will be imported to Covidence for title and abstract screening, duplication removal, full-text extraction, and record keeping. To ensure the replicability of our search and selection processes, data will be reported using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews checklist (PRISMA-ScR) [26]. A sample of this checklist can be viewed in S2 Appendix B.

Selection process.

After relevant exclusion criteria are applied (e.g., excluding non-English papers), all remaining citations will be transferred to Covidence and duplicates removed. Titles and abstracts will be screened by two independent reviewers against the inclusion criteria for the review. Potentially relevant studies agreed upon by both reviewers will be retrieved in full. The full text of these studies will then be assessed. Reasons for exclusion of full text studies will be systematically recorded and reported in the final scoping review. Any disagreements that arise between the reviewers during study selection will be resolved through discussion and, if necessary, the input of an impartial third reviewer. Search results will be reported both narratively and in a Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram [27]. A sample diagram is provided in S3 Appendix C.

Data charting.

As extraction tools within Covidence are typically used when reviewing clinical trials via the PICO framework, Microsoft Excel will be used for data charting. A data charting instrument has been created using recommendations from both Arksey and O’Malley’s influential work on scoping review methodologies and JBI’s evidence details, characteristics and results extraction instrument [15,16]. These established instruments have been tailored for relevancy to the review questions. The criteria for data charting are as follows:

1. Citation details (author, publication year, journal name).
2. Study descriptors (location, year conducted).
3. Participants (age, school year, total sample size, LGBTQ+ sample size).
4. Context (details of school amalgamation).
5. Study aims.
6. Methodology (e.g., surveys, focus groups, mixed methods).
7. Measurements of wellbeing.
8. Relevant results.

These criteria may be modified with the addition of previously unidentified themes or points of interest should they emerge during data screening. Any modifications will be reported in the final scoping review. All extracted data related to our findings will be made available through supplementary material published alongside the final study.