Opting out of neighbourhood schools: The role of local education markets in student mobility

Abstract

Open enrolment policies assume that students living in disadvantaged areas can access better schools outside their neighbourhood. However, characteristics of individuals, quality of schooling and neighbourhood characteristics interact in very complex ways to produce heterogeneous patterns of school choice in local educational markets. This article analyses how the geography of educational opportunities, the socioeconomic background of students' families and the characteristics of their residential areas, impact on the travel-to-school distance in Barcelona. Based on a unique data set of school and student registers from Barcelona's local education authority, our study shows that distances travelled by students with the same social background vary depending on the characteristics of educational supply and the income of the neighbourhood. While socially advantaged students tend to travel longer distances than their peers from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, geographical and educational factors mediate to produce high heterogeneity in mobility patterns. Our findings cast doubt on the supposed virtue of school choice to reduce education inequalities and underline the need to consider the diversity of local microeducation markets in policymaking and planning.

Fragmented spaces in the urban landscape: A socio‐spatial analysis of educational supply in the city of Madrid

“…In line with works examining Paris (Oberti, 2007), Santiago de Chile (Elacqua et al, 2011) and Barcelona (Bonal et al, 2021; Scandurra et al, 2022), this article depicts the spatial inequalities of the educational supply in the city of Madrid, showing how different educational assets are unequally distributed in different territories and for various social groups. The article is structured as follows.…”

“…In the case of highly diversified markets, the fact that families have the same number and types of nearby schools does not prevent school segregation dynamics. Even if choice is equalised, higher-income and native households might still use their positional capital to access more advantaged or higher-quality schools (Scandurra et al, 2022). Thus, while the equitable supply of schools is a fundamental component in addressing school segregation, it needs to be accompanied by other tools that shape school segregation in multiple ways, such the school admissions requirements and assignment mechanisms and the ways of funding different forms of private providers, among others.…”

“…The 'vertical' geographic choice set Following similar analyses from Burgess et al (2011) and Scandurra et al (2022), Figure 5a,b depict the different types of school composition-based on economic class and migrant status-for different families within 750 m of their residence. These figures illustrate the social characteristics of schools near to students' homes, based on the average proportion of different social groups in these schools.…”

“…Indeed, owing to the relatively low presence of private independent schools, a comparison of the two methods for public and private schools showed similar patterns. 8 We apply the same methodology used by Burgess et al (2015) or Scandurra et al (2022).…”

La segregación escolar y su impacto en el rendimiento académico del alumnado de educación primaria en España.

“…En España, los estudios sobre la segregación escolar y sus efectos sobre los resultados educativos tienen un menor recorrido. La atención suscitada por este objeto de estudio se remonta a finales de la década de los 2000 en el territorio catalán (Benito y Gonzàlez, 2007;Alegre et al, 2008;Valiente, 2008), adquiriendo especial resonancia tras la publicación en 2008 del informe La segregació escolar a Catalunya por el Síndic de Greuges, que alertaba sobre las preocupantes magnitudes de las desiguales condiciones de escolarización del alumnado en función de su origen social en la región (Bonal y Albaigés, 2009) y motivaría un particular interés por el estudio de este fenómeno en Cataluña, que se expandiría al ámbito nacional a lo largo de la pasada década (Escardíbul y Villarroya, 2009;Rambla et al, 2010;Bonal, 2012;Alegre y Benito, 2012a;Benito y Gonzàlez, 2012;Benito et al, 2014;Bonal et al, 2019;Gómez Espino, 2019;Martínez Celorrio, 2019;Bonal y Zancajo, 2020;De Madaria y Vila, 2020;Murillo y Graña, 2020;Scandurra et al, 2022;Lubián y Langa, 2022).…”