Between-school Segregation Research Articles

La Segregación Invisible: Prácticas Punitivas y de Ordenamiento Académico en Escuelas Chilenas

Si bien las políticas educativas y la investigación en educación han abordado la segregación entre escuelas, las formas menos visibles de segregación y exclusión dentro de la escuela apenas se han estudiado. El objetivo de este estudio fue caracterizar y analizar la ocurrencia y concurrencia de dos tipos de prácticas: punitivas y de ordenamiento por habilidades. Se utilizó las bases de datos del sistema de información general de estudiantes de los años 2003 al 2018 para identificar prácticas de ordenamiento académico, y los cuestionarios que acompañan la prueba SIMCE del año 2018 para analizar las prácticas punitivas reportadas por estudiantes de 6° (N = 224.274) y 10° grado (N = 202.282) y a padres de estudiantes de 4° grado (N = 214.211), 6° grado (N = 204.894) y 10° grado (N = 171.596). Los resultados muestran que los estudiantes de sexo masculino y en condición de pobreza reciben más prácticas punitivas, y que el ordenamiento académico es utilizado ampliamente en las escuelas chilenas, con mayor frecuencia en escuelas que solo imparten enseñanza secundaria. El uso de prácticas punitivas es más frecuente en aquellos colegios que ordenan académicamente. Se discute las implicancias de la sobre-representación de estas prácticas para los fenómenos de segregación educativa.

School Segregation Across the World: Has Any Progress Been Made in Reducing the Separation of the Rich from the Poor?

The segregation of secondary school students into different schools has important implications for educational inequality, social cohesion and intergenerational mobility. Previous research has demonstrated how between-school segregation varies significantly across countries, with high levels of segregation occurring in central European nations that ‘track’ children into different schools and much lower levels in Scandinavia. This paper contributes to this literature by examining whether industrialised countries have made any progress in reducing levels of between-school segregation over time. Using six waves of data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), this work shows how the segregation of rich and poor students has remained broadly unchanged across OECD countries. This is despite major economic and political events occurring during this period, along with the introduction of numerous policy initiatives designed to reduce socioeconomic gaps. Therefore, the conclusions indicate that structural factors are likely to be the main drivers of between-school segregation (e.g. neighbourhood segregation or long-standing school admission policies) and that education policymakers may need to be much more radical if they are to foster greater levels of integration between the rich and the poor.

The Segregation of “Failures”: Unequal Schools and Disadvantaged Students in an Affluent Suburb

Previous research in middle-class school districts has focused on within-school segregation but not between-school segregation. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork and 122 in-depth interviews with students, parents, and faculty in an affluent suburban school district, I find that students who struggle academically at prestigious “Pinnacle High School” are pressured by administrators to transfer to nearby “Crossroads High School.” These students are disproportionately black, Latinx, and working-class. Though students transfer due to academic struggles and not behavioral issues, Crossroads features an austere, prison-like appearance, constant surveillance of students by staff and local police, and a curriculum that disqualifies graduates from matriculating at a four-year college. I argue that the transfer policy and process disproportionately affects lower-income, black, and Latinx students, stigmatizes students who struggle as deviant “failures,” and is largely punitive rather than rehabilitative. Concentrating struggling students in a school such as Crossroads facilitates an institutional culture of academic apathy that runs counter to the school’s stated purpose as an academic rehabilitation center, and Crossroads serves the interests of academically elite schools like Pinnacle by providing those schools with a place to “dump” students who suffer academic setbacks. I refer to this form of segregation as academic apartheid—between-school segregation based on academic standing—and I conclude by proposing a change with the potential to increase equity and inclusion for students who struggle.

School choice and the city: Geographies of allocation and segregation

Urban research has increasingly acknowledged the significance of the social and spatial composition of schools in the broader socio-spatial dynamics of cities overall. With increasingly marketised education systems, parental choice of school is a key mechanism affecting wider urban processes such as gentrification. Most research into school choice in cities concentrates on the dynamics of choice (how and what parents say they choose). Fewer studies deal with the relationship between choice and the subsequent allocation of pupils to schools. This paper reports the findings of an international systematic review of the connections between parental choice and pupil allocation in school choice systems across the globe. We find that school choice is associated with higher levels of segregation of pupils from different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds between schools. This finding is consistent across all types of choice mechanism, in different countries and cities, and across choice systems that have been in place for different lengths of time. The reasons behind the observed relationship are, however, highly localised and contextual, including particularities of the choice mechanism, social composition of neighbourhoods and mix of school types in a city. Increases in between-school segregation may lead to schools being more homogeneous in their social composition, with broader implications for social cohesion and educational inequalities in cities. Relating the findings to the broader urban school literatures, we suggest that scales and geographies of allocation are critical in understanding the dilemmas and dynamics of choice, the resultant inequalities, and any proposed interventions or solutions to reduce these inequalities.

Private financing in urban public schools: inequalities in a stratified education marketplace

This study examines inequalities of school funding as exclusively generated by the parent community in urban public schools, and potentially illuminates a secondary impact of between-school segregation. For schools that are largely understood as free, the substantial injections of private financing into public schools indicate a concerning tension for fairness and equity. Using a census dataset of all public schools in one Australian capital city (n = 150), we compare reported parent ‘contributions, fees and charges’ and how they are patterned by measures of school disadvantage and advantage. We found a statistically significant relationship between private financing and measures of school-based advantage or disadvantage, over a four-year period. Advantaged schools generate up to six times greater income in comparison to disadvantaged schools over a four-year period, and we argue that the substantial gaps function as another form of ‘compounded disadvantage’ for residualised public schools and a tiered effect of segregation.

Income Segregation Between Schools and School Districts

Although trends in the racial segregation of schools are well documented, less is known about trends in income segregation. We use multiple data sources to document trends in income segregation between schools and school districts. Between-district income segregation of families with children enrolled in public school increased by over 15% from 1990 to 2010. Within large districts, between-school segregation of students who are eligible and ineligible for free lunch increased by over 40% from 1991 to 2012. Consistent with research on neighborhood segregation, we find that rising income inequality contributed to the rise in income segregation between schools and districts during this period. The rise in income segregation between both schools and districts may have implications for inequality in students’ access to resources that bear on academic achievement.

Trade-Off between Effectiveness and Equity? An Analysis of Social Sorting between Classrooms and between Schools

This article analyzes whether school social segregation, derived from policies and practices of both between-school student allocation and within-school streaming, is related to the effectiveness of the Italian education system. Hierarchical regression models are used to set out territorially aggregated factors of social sorting influencing learning opportunities beyond the traditional north-south economic divide. The findings show that practices that foster or consent to uneven distribution of students between classrooms are likely to adversely affect the overall level of educational effectiveness, especially in those areas with the lowest levels of socioeconomic development. As regards the uneven between-school allocation, the findings show that what matters when it comes to assessing the negative effect of between-school segregation on educational outcomes is not the region of residence but whether pupils live in a metropolitan area. The results are discussed in light of the students’ heterogeneity man...

The complex determinants of school intake characteristics and segregation, England 1989 to 2014

The extent of between-school segregation, or clustering of disadvantaged students within schools, in England varies depending on the indicator of interest. For example, the trend over time for segregation by student poverty differs from those for ethnicity or special educational need. Additionally the causes of the level of segregation for any indicator will be different from the causes of changes in that level over time. This new paper uses data for all state-funded schools in England from 1989 to 2014 to identify the possible determinants of segregation. The results are summarised for England and its economic regions, and presented in more detail for local authority areas. The long-term underlying level of segregation of each indicator appears to be the outcome of structural and local geographic factors. However, the annual changes in segregation for most indicators can be explained most simply by changes in the prevalence of each indicator. For example, the UK policy of inclusion has considerably increased the number of students with statements of special needs in mainstream schools, and this has resulted, intentionally, in less segregation in terms of this indicator. Segregation by poverty varies at least partly with the economic cycle. Some of the explanatory factors, such as the global economy or the prevalence of specific ethnic minority groups, are not directly under policy-makers’ control. This means that it is the more malleable factors leading to the underlying levels of poverty segregation that should be addressed by any state wanting a fair and mixed national school system. In England, these controllable factors include the use of proximity to decide contested places at schools, and school diversity as represented by the growth of Academies and Free Schools, and the continued existence of faith-based and selective schools.

Will Choice Hurt? Compared to What? A School Choice Experiment in Estonia

This article presents the empirical analysis of the effects of a school choice policy in Estonia. The article shows that relying on markets and giving autonomy to the schools over student selection will produce admission tests, even at the elementary school level. This article’s contribution is to show that a school choice policy experiment with schools free to select students will produce between-school segregation effects based on residential and background characteristics. However, the interpretation of these effects is complex because, when compared with the premarket, residential choice model, it diminishes segregation based on income and family socioeconomic status.

Measuring Between-School Segregation in an Open Enrollment System: The Case of Rio de Janeiro

Recent research in Rio de Janeiro public schools has brought to light a “Hidden Quasi-Market” that combines purported freedom of choice for parents with school control over their pupil intake. The article analyzes patterns of segregation among schools, from 2004 to 2010, according to three indicators of potentially disadvantaged pupils: Ethnic Background, Poverty, and Parents' Education. Segregation was assessed utilizing the Dissimilarity Index and the Segregation Index. The segregation trends over time, using different pupil characteristics, show distinctive trajectories, which might suggest at least two different segregation processes. Initial findings reinforce the need to track segregation by multiple pupil characteristics.

Narrowing Down the Determinants of Between-School Segregation: An Analysis of the Intake to All Schools in England, 1989–2011

This article describes the social and economic “segregation” of students between schools in England, and the likely causes of its levels and changes over time. It involves a re-analysis of the intakes to all schools in England 1989–2011, and shows how strongly clustered the students are in particular schools. The pattern for primary-age schools is the same as for secondary-age schools. However, each indicator of potential disadvantage—poverty, learning difficulty, first language, and ethnicity—has its own level and pattern of change over time. This suggests that there is not just one process of segregation. The implications for any state wanting a fair and mixed national school system are spelled out.

Pupil clustering in English secondary schools: one pattern or several?

Previous international work has shown that clustering pupils with similar characteristics in particular schools yields no clear academic benefit, and can be disadvantageous both socially and personally. Understanding how and why this clustering happens, and how it may be reduced, is therefore important for policy. Yet previous work has tended to focus on only one kind of clustering at a time. In the USA, for example, black:white segregation of pupils has been the key issue. In the UK, and across Europe, the focus has been on social background, especially on the segregation from their peers of pupils living in poverty. With access to high-quality national data sets in England, it is now possible to track the between-school segregation of numerous pupil characteristics over a 14-year period. This paper uses school-level figures for all state-funded secondary school pupils in England from 1996 to 2009, including free school meals, special needs, ethnicity, and first language. The paper investigates, more fully than has been attempted before, whether segregation in terms of these indicators has a common pattern. It presents evidence for the existence of at least three different processes of between-school segregation over this period, and proposes a possible determinant for each, and some future work that could be done to clarify the situation. The paper therefore provides an important corrective to previous work that sought explanation for only one type of segregation. In the allocation of school places, pupils are being clustered in several distinct ways. The standard previous explanations for pupil clustering such as selection by ability or housing, faith-based enrolment, and increased parental choice, apply only to some of these forms of segregation.

Investigating the determinants of segregation between schools

This paper confirms two characteristics of socio-economic segregation between schools since 1988 in England and Wales. First, using figures from all schools in England and Wales relating to family income and special educational needs, it is made clear that overall segregation between schools has been declining since 1988 so that schools are generally becoming more mixed in their intakes over time. This is true of special educational needs and eligibility for, and takeup of, free school meals in both England and Wales, and at primary as well as secondary level. Second, there are variations in segregation, and in the changes to that segregation, between different regions. Although most LEAs show a marked decline in between-school segregation, some show no change and a few show a marked increase. One possible explanation for these differences is tested here, using figures relating to the growing number of parental appeals against school placement, and the diversity of schooling available in different regions. The intriguing result suggests that whatever is driving the ongoing desegregation in England and Wales the changes are not primarily due to market forces. They are more likely to be due to social and demographic changes, coupled with local authority reorganization and other more specifically local factors. It is also clear that, for some regions at least, the greater equality is an ‘equality of poverty’. These findings are therefore a double challenge to observers who feel that segregation is increasing and that this is a market phenomenon.

Under starters orders: The established market, the Cardiff study and the Smithfield project

The early results of a recent, as yet unfunded, study of the impact of markets on schools suggest that schools in Wales have become less stratified since 1988 in terms of indicators of poverty and educational need (Gorard & Fitz, 1998). The Smithfield study in New Zealand, on the other hand, concluded that market-like systems of choice had made segregation worse by advantaging the already advantaged (Waslander & Thrupp, 1997). Commentators in England, impressed by the range of existing secondary evidence from England, as well as from the Smithfield project, showing a relationship between school choice and class, have suggested that the picture for Wales is entirely a Welsh phenomenon. This article shows that this is not so, and that early results from a similar analysis in England confirm that between-school segregation has declined since 1998. It goes on to suggest that a fuller consideration of the interaction of poverty, markets and public monopoly schooling can help to resolve the dispute. The findings from Wales, the Cardiff study, did not fit in with the zeitgeist, appeared to contradict mainstream research on school choice, and threatened to defend the use of market forces in education policy. Of course, none of these are valid reasons for rejecting them. This article suggests that, despite the impressive work of the Smithfield project and others, there are few empirical or analytical reasons for rejecting the new findings either. It is proposed here that the linked notions of the starting-gun effect and the established market can resolve some of the apparent differences in the findings.

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

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.