What Determines School Segregation? The Crucial Role of Neighborhood Factors / Gregorio S. Caetano, Hugh Macartney.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Caetano, Gregorio S.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Macartney, Hugh.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w27688.

NBER working paper series no. w27688

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.

Summary:

We develop a novel strategy to identify the relative importance of school and neighborhood factors in determining school segregation. Using detailed student enrollment and residential location data, our research design compares differences in student composition between adjacent Census blocks served by different schools to analogous differences between those schools. Our findings indicate that neighborhood factors explain around 62% of racial segregation and 44% of economic segregation across all schools, playing an even more pronounced role in urban areas, where school segregation has been especially acute. These findings suggest that the involvement of urban planners is essential when attempting to confront inequality of opportunity through education.

Notes:

Print version record

August 2020.