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

Gabriel Gutiérrez, John Jerrim () and Rodrigo Torres
Additional contact information
Gabriel Gutiérrez: London School of Economics and Political Science
John Jerrim: University College London
Rodrigo Torres: University College London

The Journal of Economic Inequality, 2020, vol. 18, issue 2, No 2, 157-179

Abstract: Abstract 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.

Keywords: School segregation; PISA; School composition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10888-019-09437-3 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:joecin:v:18:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s10888-019-09437-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10888

DOI: 10.1007/s10888-019-09437-3

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Economic Inequality is currently edited by Stephen Jenkins

More articles in The Journal of Economic Inequality from Springer, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().