Ethnic Segregation and Performance Inequality in the Swedish School System: A Regional Perspective

Eva Andersson, John Östh and Bo Malmberg
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Eva Andersson: Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University, SE-801 29 Gävle, Sweden
John Östh: Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University, SE-752 20 Uppsala, Sweden
Bo Malmberg: Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden

Environment and Planning A, 2010, vol. 42, issue 11, 2674-2686

Abstract: Sweden is today an immigrant country with more than 14% foreign born. An increasing share of the immigrants comes from non-European countries. This implies that Sweden has been transformed from an ethnically homogenous country into a country with a large visible minority. In this paper we survey the effect of this change on school segregation. Building on Schelling's model for residential segregation, we argue that establishment of a visible minority has triggered a process of school segregation that in some respects can be compared with the developments in the United States. In order to test the validity of a Schelling-type process in Swedish schools we compare segregation levels in regions with different shares of visible minority students. We use data from the PISA 2003 survey in combination with register data on the ethnic composition of student population in different parts of Sweden. We find that school segregation is higher in regions with a large visible-minority population. We also find that, controlling for student background, there are smaller differences in performance across schools in regions with low shares of minority students.

Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envira:v:42:y:2010:i:11:p:2674-2686

DOI: 10.1068/a43120

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