Published on: 16. October 2024

School segregation in comparison: international experts discussed at the seminar ‘Unravelling pathways of school segregation: A global perspective’

Increasing school segregation, i.e. the unequal distribution of children from different backgrounds across schools, plays a crucial role in educational inequalities and differences in academic performance in many countries. The workshop ‘Unravelling pathways of school segregation: A global perspective’, organised by Dr Isabel Ramos Lobato (ILS), Dr Marta Cordini (Politecnico di Torino) and Dr Quentin Ramond (Universidad Mayor de Chile), aimed to analyse the causes, dynamics, and consequences of the increasingly unequal social and ethnic composition of schools from a cross-contextual perspective. An interdisciplinary panel of renowned researchers on school segregation from Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Italy, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and Chile was invited to participate. The experts met for discussions at the Fritz Thyssen Foundation in Cologne on 8 and 9 October. The Foundation funded the international exchange.

The comparative analysis of different spatial and institutional contexts revealed some surprisingly similar underlying patterns. For example, studies from Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin and Paris highlighted the sometimes significant impact of gentrification on school composition. Agent-based modelling in Santiago de Chile and Stockholm explained similarities and differences in parental school choice behaviour in Chile and Sweden. Finally, research from Germany, Finland, and the Czech Republic demonstrated the impact of institutional factors on school segregation. These studies analysed the influence of different providers on the composition of early childhood education, the behaviour of school principals in admitting pupils, the role of school districts in segregating children from Roma families, and the different possibilities for schools to recruit qualified teachers.

Insights from the workshop in Cologne © ILS

Modified on: 16. October 2024