Alert and inert clients: The Scottish experience of parental choice of schools

Abstract

In 1980 the British Government passed legislation giving parents the statutory right to place requests for schools outside their designated catchments. The study examines the characteristics of Scottish parents who exercised choice 2 years after the legislation had become operational. It also examines the social class intakes of the schools they chose, and asks whether their choices increased the likelihood of their children attaining better results on the national certificate examinations. The findings show that parents who exercised choice were more highly educated and had more prestigious occupations than those who sent their child to the designated school. Choosers tended to select schools with higher mean socioeconomic status and higher mean levels of attainment. However, the chosen schools did not differ substantially from designated schools in their attainment, once account had been taken of the background characteristics of pupils entering them. The results suggest that the choice process is increasing between-school segregation.