Summary

The English systems of school choice and allocation may result in greater ethnic segregation between schools than between neighbourhoods. This chapter looks at that proposition and asks to what extent school levels of ethnic segregation reflect neighbourhood ethnic composition, where do they not, and for which types of school are the differences greatest? It makes a simple comparison of the segregation between schools and between neighbourhoods then, acknowledging the limitations of that comparison, employs a more sophisticated analysis to compare the diversity of schools’ intakes with what they would look like under a hypothetical system without choice. In the majority of cases, intakes into schools reflect the neighbourhoods that surround them and are not dissimilar to what would be expected under a neighbourhood-based system of pupil allocation. There is little evidence that the current system of school choice raises ethnic segregation substantially.

Introduction

The preceding chapter ended by suggesting patterns of ethnic segregation for schools are linked to those for neighbourhoods. If true, it is not surprising: although the English state school system is described as offering choice, it operates with constraints on that choice – many of those constraints acting geographically. In general, the closest schools are the most accessible and the ones that a pupil has greatest chances of being admitted to. Consequently, school intakes are not independent of the neighbourhoods that surround each school.

Even so, it is not a strictly neighbourhood-based system – pupils (or their parents) have a choice set that, albeit geographically constrained, need not be the same for even those who live in close proximity to one another. That means that it is possible for pupils to separate along ethnic lines. Whether they do or not is the subject of this chapter.

School choice and its potential effects on neighbourhood segregation

In principle, any pupil is free to apply to any school and that school is obliged to admit the pupil if there are sufficient places available (assuming the school does not operate other admissions criteria that would limit entry, such as being academically selective or a single-sex school)