The clustering of access to schools

Publication Summary

This chapter looks at the various possible reasons and solutions for why and how educational disadvantage occurs. It examines how factors described in the previous chapter, such as segregation, influence whether children go to school with others like them. The clustering of students with similar characteristics in particular schools is partly determined by factors outside education — indeed, often outside immediate government control. The economic cycle, the nature of regional populations, residential segregation within regions, local population density, quality of public transport (especially in rural areas), and patterns of recent immigration are all determinants of either the level or trend in socio-economic status (SES) segregation between schools. Other determinants, however, are quite clearly within education and within government control.