Redesigning choice to tackle school segregation: the impact of Barcelona’s desegregation policies

White charter school enclaves — defined as charter schools located in school districts that are thirty percent or less white, but that enroll a student body that is fifty percent or greater white — are emerging across the country. The emergence of white charter school enclaves is the result of a sobering but ugly truth: when given a choice, white parents as a collective tend to choose racially segregated, predominately white schools. Empirical research supports this claim. Empirical research also demonstrates that white parents as a collective will make that choice even when presented with the option of a more racially diverse school that is of good academic quality. Despite the connection between collective white parental choice and school segregation, greater choice continues to be injected into the school assignment process. School choice assignment policies, particularly charter schools, are proliferating at a substantial rate. As a result, parental choice rather than systemic design is creating new patterns of racial segregation and inequality in public schools. Yet the Supreme Court’s school desegregation jurisprudence insulates from legal scrutiny racial segregation in schools ostensibly caused by parental choice rather than systemic design. Consequently, the new patterns of racial segregation in public schools caused by collective white parental choice are largely escaping regulation by courts. This article argues that the time has come to reconsider the legal and normative viability of regulating racial segregation in public schools caused by collective white parental choice. The article makes two important contributions to the legal literature on school desegregation. First, using white charter school enclaves as an example, it documents the ways in which school choice policies are being used to allow whites as a collective to satisfy their preference for segregated predominately white schools. Second, the article sets forth both constitutional and normative arguments for regulating the private choices that result in stark racial segregation patterns in public schools.

This chapter asks how socio-spatial segregation, school choices and residential choices are related in the relatively egalitarian Finnish education system. In many countries, school choice policies have been viewed as a means of desegregating schools by removing the immediate link between home address and school allocation through allowing pupils to select schools in different locations. However, international research points to school choice increasing school segregation, and our long-term research on the Helsinki metropolitan area demonstrates this in the Finnish context as well. The tendency towards school segregation is increased by the effect that school and school catchment area segregation have on the residential mobility of families with children. By combining register-based research and qualitative evidence, we describe the complex interconnections of social and spatial processes contributing to growth of segregation and educational inequality in urban schools and neighbourhoods in Finland. Processes operating at multiple scales exacerbate the risk of self-perpetuating vicious circles of segregation, where segregation in schools and neighbourhoods feed into each other. Besides the macro-level patterns of segregation in the cities and their education systems, local hierarchies between neighbouring schools and between school classes may further segregate schools and their individual catchment areas. Such micro-level processes may lead to growing segregation even when initial differences are small, as parents compare and navigate the network of schools close to their residential location, and school reputations mediate choices in local school markets. Our research has unearthed multiple mechanisms creating growing divides between schools, demonstrating that not even a relatively egalitarian educational system with high overall quality of schools is entirely shielded from segregation tendencies, which may lead to a decline in equality and greater risks of educational exclusion.

There is a strong tradition of studying residential segregation and school segregation as separate phenomena. It is less common to find research that attempts to connect the two and measure the combined consequences on inequality and social cohesion. While many authors in the US have taken an interest in this connection, it remains less studied in France compared to other European countries like Great Britain, Finland and the Netherlands. This is quite surprising in a country where, due to a rather rigid policy of school catchment areas based on place of residence in large cities, there is a strong correlation between socio-residential segregation and school segregation. To understand this complex, interdependent link, we have to take into account institutional, social and urban dimensions. The chapter has two main goals. The first is to show that school segregation is not merely a simple, mechanical reflection of residential segregation, but the result of many processes related to school policies, parental strategies and urban inequalities. For this reason, we pay attention to the specific context of the metropolitan area of Paris, both in terms of residential and school segregation and in terms of school policy. The second aim of this chapter is to show that school segregation not only has an impact on school achievement, but also on more qualitative issues such as the perception of inequalities and the feeling of discrimination. Here, we will not focus on the impact on school performance, but rather on how it shapes how people perceive school segregation. The first part of the chapter deals with the first aim, and will present and discuss how and why, in the city of Paris, school segregation is more intense than residential segregation, and some of the reasons school issues are increasingly interwoven with residential strategies. After an overall presentation of the French context, and school and residential patterns in Paris, we will show that school segregation is not only the result of lower-middle-class parents avoiding local working-class public schools. The chapter will look closely at the impact of selective upper-middle-class school choices, even when families live in advantaged neighbourhoods. The second part of the chapter addresses the second aim, offering an explanation for why the feeling of being trapped in segregated, ‘disreputable’ public schools, a feeling which is shared among people from disadvantaged and immigrant backgrounds as well as parts of the lower-middle class, has a deep impact on social cohesion. We will see how this encourages working-class people to think more in terms of discrimination (segregation as the result of an intentional process) rather than in terms of inequality, calling into question public schools’ capacity for guaranteeing equal opportunity. This is another way of analysing how people facing an unequal context perceive injustice.

IntroductionMost studies of the relationship between racial segregation and racial health disparities have focused on residential segregation. School-based racial segregation is an additional form of segregation that may be associated with racial disparities in health. This study examines the relationship between both residential segregation and school segregation and racial health disparities among non-Hispanic Black compared to non-Hispanic White persons at the county level in the United States. It also examines the relationship between changes in residential and school segregation and subsequent trajectories in a variety of racial health disparities across the life course.MethodsUsing the CDC WONDER Multiple Case of Death database, we derived an annual estimate of race-specific death rates and rate ratios for each county during the period 2000–2020. We then examined the relationship between baseline levels of residential and school segregation in 1991 as well as changes between 1991–2000 and the trajectories of the observed racial health disparities between 2000 and 2020. We used latent trajectory analysis to identify counties with similar patterns of residential and school segregation over time and to identify counties with similar trajectories in each racial health disparity. Outcomes included life expectancy, early mortality (prior to age 65), infant mortality, firearm homicide, total homicide, and teenage pregnancy rates.ResultsDuring the period 1991–2020, racial residential segregation remained essentially unchanged among the 1051 counties in our sample; however, racial school segregation increased during this period. Increases in school segregation from 1991 to 2000 were associated with higher racial disparities in each of the health outcomes during the period 2000–2020 and with less progress in reducing these disparities.ConclusionThis paper provides new evidence that school segregation is an independent predictor of racial health disparities and that reducing school segregation—even in the face of high residential segregation—could have a long-term impact on reducing racial health disparities. Furthermore, it suggests that the health consequences of residential segregation have not been eliminated from our society but are now being exacerbated by a new factor: school-based segregation. Throughout this paper, changes in school-based segregation not only show up as a consistent significant predictor of greater racial disparities throughout the life course, but at times, an even stronger predictor of health inequity than residential segregation.

In Boston, there are no guaranteed neighborhood schools for families, due to a model of choice that dates back to the city's infamous desegregation effort in the 1970s. Today, every family wishing to enroll their child in a Boston Public School must formally register and then rank their preferred school choices from a list designed to give every family access to "quality schools close to home." Due to the complexity and compulsory nature of the process, all families must visit a district registration site, known as Welcome Centers, to formally register for and make their school selections. While much is known about the modern-day persistence of segregation in schools, as well as the conditions that shape family preferences and participation in school choice, less is known about how institutional practices outside of schools also contribute to the enduring inequalities in public education. This dissertation project delves into that black box of school choice: the bureaucratic details, practices, and processes that make up school selection, registration, assignment, and enrollment. Through a mixed-methods project that includes a multi-sited ethnography, fifty interviews with district staff, a multilingual survey of over 5,000 registering families, and complemented by administrative data, I interrogate seemingly-neutral bureaucratic procedures, tools, and resources to reveal how institutions reproduce broader social inequalities. I argue that districts shape families' access to school choice and experiences in registration sites and facilitate the unequal sorting of families before they are finally assigned to schools. I find that raced, classed, linguistic, and gendered inequalities are mirrored in the everyday implementation of school choice policy in practice. This dissertation project is comprised of three empirical articles. In the first article, I examine the conditions and consequences of pre-registration; how it shapes the waiting, service, and citizenship of clients in the registration sites. I find that pre-registration operates as a tool, a spatial logic, and a moralized value system that allows for efficient and racialized sorting of time and space in the centers. The second article examines the contexts that enable or constrain staff dissemination of information to families, as well as the resulting information gap. Despite their intention to help families make well-informed choices, workers are both limited in their access to and complicit in limiting information that would help inform parents' school choices. Ultimately, the absence of institutional interventions to address known information gaps protects the racial segregation of schools and harms both the highest need families and the staff of color who serve them. Finally, the third article looks across a range of district efforts to decrease families' administrative burdens. The accumulation of these initiatives produces "white noise" which drowns out the particular needs of poor, non-English speaking, immigrant families of color, thus compounding disadvantage for structurally marginalized registering families. This research makes important empirical and theoretical contributions to sociological studies of race, school choice, organizations, and public policy. This project shows how policies, even those designed by or within progressive organizations, may perpetuate or increase existing inequalities. Theoretically, I confirm that organizations are racialized even when they focus on equity, hire diverse staff, and espouse racially progressive values. Empirically, I examine the underlying institutional mechanisms that make up the more mundane implementation of policies to show how they consistently reproduce broader racial inequalities. In other words, the process perpetuates structural inequalities despite changes in staff or even broader assignment policies. This project, while focused on one school district's current assignment plan, has important lessons for the bureaucratic implementation of a wide range of choice and public policy efforts. While resources or initiatives may be intended for all, they operate as a racial alibi that excuses and legitimates racialized outcomes.

This article explores the relationship between school choice, student mobility and school segregation in Barcelona. The case of Barcelona is particularly interesting because the school admissions policy combines a particular design of catchment area with a significant level of choice options. We work on students and school register datasets for the school year 2016–2017 to observe the association between the socioeconomic characteristics of the students and their residential and educational geographical distribution. The article tests whether recent reforms that have undermined the role of residential proximity in admissions policy have impacted on the school segregation of three groups of socially disadvantaged students (foreign students, students entitled to Free School Meals (FSM) and students who are Recipients of Social Allowances (RSA)). We explore different patterns of mobility between socially disadvantaged and non‐disadvantaged students and the impact of opting out from neighbourhood schools on school segregation. By using a counterfactual approach that compares real enrolment with simulated school enrolment in proximity schools, we provide evidence of a significant reduction of school segregation for all socially disadvantaged students, showing the negative effects of the current high number of school choice options. In addition, our analysis shows that school choice boosts remarkably the inequality between public and private subsidised schools. The final section of the article reflects on the implications of our findings for potential reforms in the current definition of catchment areas and the overall school choice policy in Barcelona.

This article examines the impact of a high school choice policy in Seoul, South Korea on school segregation by student performance levels. Seoul replaced random assignment of high schools with school choice in 2010. By exploiting the policy change, this article examines the effect of the school choice policy on student sorting by ability. Using rich administrative data, this article compares school segregation prior to and following the implementation of the high school choice policy in Seoul. We find that schools became segregated by student performance levels after the implementation of the school choice policy. Because of the high degree of racial and ethnic homogeneity of South Korea, the results of this article suggest that school choice increases school academic segregation independently from school racial segregation.

The effects of a free school choice policy on parents’ school choice behaviour

School choice has emerged as the linchpin of President Trump’s urban education reform plan, but it remains unclear how school choice policies will shape the educational experiences of the most underserved student groups, particularly English learners (ELs). Using quantitative data from one large urban school district, we examine EL participation in a system of school choice. Specifically, we investigate the extent to which never, current, and former ELs enroll in a nonzoned school. We find significant differences in the likelihood that students across these groups engage in school choice, raising important questions about whether school choice reforms are accessible to current ELs.

Dennis R. Judd, Department of Political Science, University of Missouri-St. Louis* This article explains how local, state, and federal governments have exacerbated or failed to take steps to reduce residential segregation in the St. Louis metropolitan area since the District Court's 1981 decision in Liddell v. Board of Education The court ruled then that both the policies of the city school board and governmental housing policies had contributed to racial segregation in the city's schools. The author presents a comprehensive review of socioeconomic and political issues related to housing segregation in the St. Louis region, and offers five corrective actions to facilitate fair housing practices, policies, and enforcement in the region. INTRODUCTION In the 1977 Craton Liddell et al. v. the Board of Education of the City of St. Louis, Missouri et al. trial, the board of education (BOE) of the city of St. Louis argued that racial imbalance in that city's schools existed because of resegregative factors associated with governmental housing policies, and not because of school policies administered by the school board. In rejecting this argument in 1981, the District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri ruled that the policies of the school board contributed to racial segregation in the schools. The court also recognized that governmental housing policies had played an important contributing role, basing its conclusions in this regard primarily on the report of its independent housing expert, Gary Orfield.1 Orfield's comprehensive 153-page report, submitted on April 21, 1981, provided strong that federally assisted housing has, over time, tended to resegregate African American populations. The court subsequently ordered the state of Missouri, the United States, the city of St. Louis, and the BOE to develop a plan to ensure that housing programs would facilitate school desegregation. Though such a plan was drawn up, the state of Missouri refused to participate, and the plan was never implemented. Nearly two decades later, federally assisted housing yields the same effect, despite changes in policies at the federal level. The long-term pattern of local resistance to racial integration in the St. Louis region has continued unchanged. Governments at all levels have continued to pursue policies that have promoted racial segregation in housing, in St. Louis and elsewhere, and they have failed to enact policies that would have the effect of reducing such segregation. The effect of this governmental complicity and inaction is that the St. Louis metropolitan area remains highly segregated. The conditions of residential segregation documented in 1981 persist to this day. As in the past, segregation in housing continues to amplify school not only in St. Louis but across the nation. Because racial segregation in the schools is directly related to patterns of residential schools in the St. Louis metropolitan area, in many urban areas in the United States, remain highly segregated. In this article, I demonstrate how, local, state, and federal governments have continued to exacerbate or have failed to take steps to reduce residential segregation in the St. Louis metropolitan area since the District Court's 1981 decision. I also present a comprehensive review of the socioeconomic and political issues related to housing in the St. Louis region, and offer five corrective actions to facilitate fair housing practices, policies, and enforcement across city and county lines. THE LIDDELL CASE In reaching its initial decision in Liddell, the District Court identified St. Louis as an example of 'severe' residential segregation, and noted that evidence of housing segregation in St. Louis is undisputed in the record (Liddell, 1981, p. 1324). The Court further expressed its view that government policies and action have been a major force in developing and maintaining housing discrimination against blacks (p. …

Schelling and Sakoda prominently proposed computational models suggesting\nthat strong ethnic residential segregation can be the unintended outcome of a\nself-reinforcing dynamic driven by choices of individuals with rather tolerant\nethnic preferences. There are only few attempts to apply this view to school\nchoice, another important arena in which ethnic segregation occurs. In the\ncurrent paper, we explore with an agent-based theoretical model similar to\nthose proposed for residential segregation, how ethnic tolerance among parents\ncan affect the level of school segregation. More specifically, we ask whether\nand under which conditions school segregation could be reduced if more parents\nhold tolerant ethnic preferences. We move beyond earlier models of school\nsegregation in three ways. First, we model individual school choices using a\nrandom utility discrete choice approach. Second, we vary the pattern of ethnic\nsegregation in the residential context of school choices systematically,\ncomparing residential maps in which segregation is unrelated to parents' level\nof tolerance to residential maps reflecting their ethnic preferences. Thirdly,\nwe introduce heterogeneity in tolerance levels among parents belonging to the\nsame group. Our simulation experiments suggest that ethnic school segregation\ncan be a very robust phenomenon, occurring even when about half of the\npopulation prefers mixed to segregated schools. However, we also identify a\nsweet spot in the parameter space in which a larger proportion of tolerant\nparents makes the biggest difference. This is the case when the preference for\nnearby schools weighs heavily in parents' utility function and the residential\nmap is only moderately segregated. Further experiments are presented that\nunravel the underlying mechanisms.\n

Over the past few decades, school choice has been a widely debated issue around the globe, following the development of pluralism, liberty, and democracy. In many countries, school choice systems were preceded by residence-based school assignment systems, creating a strong connection between a neighborhood and its schools’ demographic compositions. However, schools often remain highly segregated. School segregation is thus seen as a major problem and is supposedly driven by three main factors: residential segregation, parental school choice, and schools’ selection of pupils. This paper aims to shed light on what research should be focusing on as regards school choice and residential segregation with the following two research questions: What are the links between neighborhood and school choice in the literature? How are neighborhood and school choice connected to school segregation in the literature? Two main findings emerged: (1) the neighborhood-based social networks that parents developed had limited their school choices and (2) neighborhood segregation is one of the most important factors that contributes to school segregation and is related to multi-ethnic and socioeconomic contexts.

Schelling and Sakoda prominently proposed computational models suggesting that strong ethnic residential segregation can be the unintended outcome of a self-reinforcing dynamic driven by choices of individuals with rather tolerant ethnic preferences. There are only few attempts to apply this view to school choice, another important arena in which ethnic segregation occurs. In the current paper, we explore with an agent-based theoretical model similar to those proposed for residential segregation, how ethnic tolerance among parents can affect the level of school segregation. More specifically, we ask whether and under which conditions school segregation could be reduced if more parents hold tolerant ethnic preferences. We move beyond earlier models of school segregation in three ways. First, we model individual school choices using a random utility discrete choice approach. Second, we vary the pattern of ethnic segregation in the residential context of school choices systematically, comparing residential maps in which segregation is unrelated to parents’ level of tolerance to residential maps reflecting their ethnic preferences. Thirdly, we introduce heterogeneity in tolerance levels among parents belonging to the same group. Our simulation experiments suggest that ethnic school segregation can be a very robust phenomenon, occurring even when about half of the population prefers mixed to segregated schools. However, we also identify a “sweet spot” in the parameter space in which a larger proportion of tolerant parents makes the biggest difference. This is the case when the preference for nearby schools weighs heavily in parents utility function and the residential map is only moderately segregated. Further experiments are presented that unravel the underlying mechanisms.

It is a matter of debate whether free school choice should lead to higher or lower levels of school segregation. We investigate how school choice opportunities affect school segregation utilizing geocoded Swedish population register data with information on 13 cohorts of ninth graders. We find that local school choice opportunities strongly affect the sorting of students across schools based on the parents’ country of birth and level of education. An increase in the number of local schools leads to higher levels of local segregation net of stable area characteristics, and time-varying controls for population structure and local residential segregation. In particular, the local presence of private voucher schools pushes school segregation upwards. The segregating impact of school choice opportunities is notably stronger in ‘native’ areas with high portions of highly educated parents, and in areas with low residential segregation. Our results point to the importance of embedding individual actors in relevant opportunity structures for understanding segregation processes.

ABSTRACTThe aims of the study were to examine changes in school segregation across different types of municipalities between 1998 and 2011 in Sweden, and to explore the extent to which these changes are the consequences of school choice. Multilevel models were applied to register data using a counterfactual approach. The results showed that school segregation with respect to migration background and educational achievement had increased over time, while social segregation remained rather constant. The degree of school segregation varied largely across different municipality types, and it was concluded that school choice was a determinant of school segregation. The findings have strong policy implications and are discussed in relation to the recent educational reforms in Sweden.