Student Segregation Across and Within Schools - The Case of the Portuguese Public School System

Abstract

We provide the most comprehensive description of student segregation in the Portuguese public school system to date, a system that exhibits interesting institutional features potentially linked with the student segregation issue (e.g. school catchment areas, course tracking, and almost no central regulations regarding class composition). The analysis uses the entire regular student population enrolled in all public schools of continental Portugal (grades 1 to 12, from 2006/07 to 2016/17). Looking at three segregation dimensionseconomic, academic, and immigrantat both between and within-school levels, and using a novel dissimilarity index recently proposed in the literature aimed at better capturing systematic segregation, we find that segregation, on median, is mild, across time, grades, and regions. The most important exception is the case of within-school academic segregation. During upper-secondary schooling, in particular, when students are divided across classes according to own course-tracking decisions, it doubles. Moreover, within-school academic segregation estimates have the largest interquartile ranges, within a given year, grade, or region, pointing to heterogeneity in the way different schools set up classes internally in terms of students' academic characteristics. Academic and economic segregation are positively associated, at both between and within school levels. The Portuguese segregation insights are also compared to those from other geographies. and Castelo Branco; "north" -Viana do Castelo, Braga, Vila Real, Bragança, Guarda, Viseu, and Aveiro.

How representative are social partners in Europe? The role of dissimilarity

“…The latter can be measured through the dissimilarity or segregation index (Duncan & Duncan, 1955). Previous applications include studies of segregation of ethnic minorities across neighbourhoods, of migrants across occupations, of students across classes and many others (Andrews et al, 2017; Firmino et al, 2020; Glitz, 2014; Hellerstein & Neumark, 2008). This index computes the extent to which individuals of one type are distributed in the same way (in terms of the shares of all individuals of the same type) across multiple units of interest when compared with individuals of a different type 3 .…”

“…While dissimilarity indices have already been applied in analyses of gender, racial or ethnic segregation across neighbourhoods, schools, occupations or workplaces (Andrews et al, 2017;Firmino et al, 2020;Glitz, 2014;Hellerstein & Neumark, 2008), we believe we are the first to propose them in the context of industrial relations and labour economics. Specifically, we compare the distributions of firms affiliated or not in EAs across industry and firm-size categories.…”

Atlas dos Alunos Com Origem Imigrante: Quem São e Onde Estão nos Ensinos Básico e Secundário em Portugal

“…4 Considerar a naturalidade do aluno e dos progenitores, em vez da nacionalidade do aluno (o mais comummente usado), é sociologicamente mais relevante, pois remete para referenciais de vida do aluno e dos seus progenitores, permite apreender diferenciações internas importantes, e não se reduz à fixação do atributo de um estatuto jurídico. O caráter redutor do uso da nacionalidade 3 Ver, respetivamente, as publicações do Perfil do Aluno lançadas anualmente pela DGEEC e, como exemplo da produção científica nacional e estrangeira, os textos de Seabra et al (2014); Seabra, Carvalho e Ávila (2019); Firmino et al (2020); e Portes e Rumbaut (2005). 4 A utilização das categorias referente ao estatuto geracional não é consensual devido aos problemas que podem emergir da sua utilização, nomeadamente o risco de exterioridade, por continuidade genealógica associada, principalmente, à categoria segunda geração.…”