Summary

Most of the focus of this book has been on ethnic segregation, reflecting the discourse found in the media and prominent in government policy documents. However, there is a strong intersectionality between social and ethnic dis-/advantage, which means processes of socio-economic separation are linked to patterns of ethnic segregation in ways that are not easily disentangled. The purpose of this chapter is not to try and do so but, instead, to look for evidence that within ethnic groups, and within a system of constrained school choice, the more or less affluent have different amounts of segregation from other ethnic groups, with this being related to the different types of school they attend. That evidence is found with those of the White British who are not eligible for free school meals (FSMs) generally the most segregated from /least exposed to other ethnic groups, with the effects of academically selective and some religiously selective schools contributing to the differences.

Introduction

To this point, the book has focused on ethnic segregation, with only passing mention of socio-economic segregation and the idea that people of different incomes, affluence or class can reside and be educated separately from one another. Socio-economic and ethnic segregation are intertwined. The spatial inequalities that divide people by wealth and social background sustain and are sustained by inequalities between ethnic groups too. Hence, there is a strong intersectionality between social and ethnic dis-/advantage, as Reni Eddo-Lodge (2017), among others, has eloquently articulated (see Chapter 1). But, despite the overlap, the concepts of ethnic and socio-economic segregation are not exactly reducible to each another. To talk of ethnic segregation is to look more at where people of different ethno-cultural backgrounds are living and attending schools; to talk of socio-economic segregation is to consider the same but for people of different socio-economic positions and/or class.

The attention we have given to ethnic segregation is a reflection of how segregation is conveyed in recent government policy documents. However, it is also the same focus that has been criticized – rightly – for ignoring or, at least, downplaying the socio-economic factors that generate inequalities of opportunity for different ethnic groups and create geographically differentiated outcomes in regard to employment, health, housing, health, the criminal justice system, education and so forth, all of which affect where people live and go to school.

Summary

Data about the school-age population in LEAs provide contextual information about what is happening in terms of patterns of ethnic segregation at a broad geographic scale. In regard to the number of each ethnic group per local authority, the White British now have greater potential to be ‘exposed’ to other groups than they did in the past (to reside and be schooled alongside them) because the numbers of those other groups have grown. The reverse is not true, however, because the potential exposure of ‘minority’ groups to the White British has declined with their reduced number or lower growth rate compared to most other groups. All but ten authorities have a more diverse school-age population overall.

Introduction

Chapter 2 looked at the changing numbers of various ethnic groups in the state schools of English LEAs over the period from 2010 to 2017. It found a decreasing percentage of the pupils to be White British, with that decline due to a smaller number of that group in secondary schools (but not primary schools, where their number is rising), and also due to the rising number of pupils from other ethnic groups (with the exception of Black Caribbeans, whose numbers have declined in both primary and secondary schools).

The picture sketched was one of increasing diversity across large parts of the country at the LEA scale, with the school-age population less dominated by the White British, though it remains by far the largest group. Although a decline in the White British is notable in some conurbations, there are many other places where not only are the White British increasing in number, so too are other ethnic groups. In this chapter, we turn to the sorts of formal measures of segregation widely used in academic writing and in policy research. Doing so allows us to both to colour the picture more fully and to introduce the measures ahead of more geographically nuanced analysis from Chapter 4 onwards.

Measuring segregation

Segregation means that when we map where members of different ethnic groups are living or schooled, those maps are not all the same and each shows geographical variation. Put simply, ‘different’ people live in different places.

Summary

The English systems of school choice and allocation may result in greater ethnic segregation between schools than between neighbourhoods. This chapter looks at that proposition and asks to what extent school levels of ethnic segregation reflect neighbourhood ethnic composition, where do they not, and for which types of school are the differences greatest? It makes a simple comparison of the segregation between schools and between neighbourhoods then, acknowledging the limitations of that comparison, employs a more sophisticated analysis to compare the diversity of schools’ intakes with what they would look like under a hypothetical system without choice. In the majority of cases, intakes into schools reflect the neighbourhoods that surround them and are not dissimilar to what would be expected under a neighbourhood-based system of pupil allocation. There is little evidence that the current system of school choice raises ethnic segregation substantially.

Introduction

The preceding chapter ended by suggesting patterns of ethnic segregation for schools are linked to those for neighbourhoods. If true, it is not surprising: although the English state school system is described as offering choice, it operates with constraints on that choice – many of those constraints acting geographically. In general, the closest schools are the most accessible and the ones that a pupil has greatest chances of being admitted to. Consequently, school intakes are not independent of the neighbourhoods that surround each school.

Even so, it is not a strictly neighbourhood-based system – pupils (or their parents) have a choice set that, albeit geographically constrained, need not be the same for even those who live in close proximity to one another. That means that it is possible for pupils to separate along ethnic lines. Whether they do or not is the subject of this chapter.

School choice and its potential effects on neighbourhood segregation

In principle, any pupil is free to apply to any school and that school is obliged to admit the pupil if there are sufficient places available (assuming the school does not operate other admissions criteria that would limit entry, such as being academically selective or a single-sex school)

Summary

Patterns of ethnic segregation are affected by demographic processes changing the number of each ethnic group living and going to school in a particular area. Notably, the White British formed a smaller proportion of the secondary school aged population in England in 2017 than they did in 2010 because of a decline in the number of White British pupils against a rise in the number of other ethnic groups, except Black Caribbeans. However, nationally the number of White British (but not Black Caribbeans) in primary schools has increased. There are geographical variations in the extent of these changes, with places like Harrow, Redbridge, Newham and Luton seeing greatest percentage declines in their number of White British primary pupils. Nevertheless, many local authorities appear either to be ethnically diverse or are becoming more so.

Introduction

Chapter 1 mentioned the effect of demographic changes on measures of segregation over time. Because children usually live with one or more parent and because ‘minority’ groups are, on average, younger than the White British, what may appear to be increasing segregation could more simply be a reflection of (ethnic minority) families raising children, which creates an increase in the number of that group within particular schools and neighbourhoods (prior to those children leaving home and dispersing geographically). The slight increase in residential ethnic segregation between the 1991 and the 2001 UK censuses, for example, which itself is disputed (Farley and Blackman, 2014), can be attributed to demographic change and to the different age structures of the various groups, subsequently declining to 2011 and, we anticipate, beyond.

This chapter looks at how and where changes to the ethnic composition of the school-age population have occurred over the period from 2010 to 2017 in English state schools. It provides the demographic context in which interpretation of any changing patterns of segregation need to be situated.

About the data

The data we are using in this chapter and the next are publicly available from www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-schooland-pupil-numbers. Of specific interest are the local authority tables, which provide counts of pupils and their characteristics.

The issue of segregation – across residential areas, across and within schools, within workplaces and in terms of access to the most economically advantageous positions in society, for example – has long attracted public and political attention. It has stimulated much academic research, describing situations both national and local, exploring their impacts on economic, social, cultural and political life, and seeking to influence public policy.

There is a long tradition of such work in the US, reflecting not only a population history over the last three centuries or more built on immigration from a wide range of cultural origins but also the particular situation of discriminated groups there – notably the descendants of black slaves. Although geographical patterns of immigrant settlement have characterized the UK over a longer period – Jewish, Huguenot, Roma and Irish immigrants have settled in particular areas, for example, almost all of them urban – segregation has only become a consistent feature of national debate since the Second World War. This was generated by large-scale immigration of groups, mainly from the former British Empire, with skin colour and cultural identities (language, religion, dress and so on) different from those of the majority (White British) population that have stimulated tensions – feelings of ‘them and us’ differences – and led to discrimination in labour and housing markets. Such tensions have occasionally generated inter-group conflicts – ‘race riots’ – which have led to government responses seeking inter-group harmony, not least through legislation that seeks equality across ethnic groups and encourages their integration into the dominant society, even if some members of minority groups wish to retain elements of their cultural/ancestral identity.

Over the last 50 years or so the UK has attracted many immigrants from a variety of backgrounds. Despite many aspects of public policy designed both to manage those migrant streams and to promote social harmony, inter-group tensions remain in place, if less intense than in the earlier decades of that period. One aspect of the multi-ethnic/multi-cultural society that is frequently raised as a problem constraining the development of that society being ‘at ease with itself ‘ is segregation. Because members of the different cultural groups now present in British towns and cities in considerable numbers tend to congregate in separate residential areas – in part because of choice, in part because of constraints, financial and otherwise – inter-group contact, and especially contact between those groups and the majority population, is restricted.

Summary

The idea that ethnic segregation is growing in England is sometimes implied in Government-backed policy documents and reinforced by the media, notwithstanding empirical evidence to the contrary. This chapter introduces how debates about segregation have been framed, reproduced and applied to what is happening within schools. It notes a tendency to present segregation as something due to minority groups despite those groups becoming more spread out and living in more mixed neighbourhoods.

Introduction

This book provides a new study of segregation between ethnic groups across English state schools in the period from 2011 to 2017. It examines whether patterns of school-level segregation decreased or increased over the period, how those compare with patterns of residential segregation, their association with particular types of schools, and how geographies of ethnic segregation reflect geographies of social segregation. The study is important given the limited information about what is happening in terms of the patterns of ethnic segregation since 2011 (the data of the last national census) and – more especially – the enduring belief among some that segregation is both worsening and undermining social cohesion in the country.

Concerns about segregation rarely disappear, but on occasion they gain more prominence. Of recent note is the government-sponsored Casey Review: A Review into Opportunity and Integration. It reignited debate about whether Britain is becoming more socially and ethnically divided in ways that might undermine social integration and community cohesion (Casey, 2016). The review pays attention to schools, arguing that the school-age population is more ethnically segregated than its residential patterns of living.

Its findings have been influential. Drawing upon them, the Government's Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper states that ‘in some areas, there is a relatively high degree of separation of pupils of different ethnicities across schools’ (HM Government, 2018: 11). Taking the suggestion that school segregation should be understood as the extent to which schools are representative of local populations, the social integration charity, The Challenge, undertook its own study of school segregation in England for the period from 2011 to 2016, reaching the conclusion that a quarter of primary and four in ten secondary schools were ‘ethnically segregated or potentially contributing to segregation’ (The Challenge, 2017: 13; but see Burgess and Harris, 2017 for a response to this claim).

Summary

The Casey Review cites a study by the think-tank Demos that shows the majority of ethnic minority students attend schools where ‘minority’ groups are in the majority. That statistic is correct but too easily misinterpreted. Only White British students typically are in a school where their own ethnic group forms a majority; for most ethnic minority pupils the largest group they will encounter at school is also the White British. The exceptions to this are the Bangladeshi and Pakistani groups, and more so in primary than in secondary schools. Nevertheless, the overwhelming trend is that schools are becoming more ethnically diverse with an increased potential for pupils to be educated alongside pupils of other ethnic groups.

Introduction

Nearly every LEA has become more ethnically diverse in terms of the overall characteristics of the pupils who attend its schools. However, until recently there has been a national decline in the number of White British of school age in the population and this has occurred during a period when the number of most other ethnic groups has increased. The result of these demographic changes is that whereas the White British now have more potential to be schooled with pupils from other ethnic groups (because the groups have spread out across England), those other ethnic groups are, relatively speaking, less exposed to the White British than before (because the White British have either not grown at the same rate or have had a numeric decline in some places). On face value those findings support what is written in The Casey Review and its claim that ‘as the diversity of the nation has increased […] people from minority groups have become both more dispersed and in some cases more concentrated and segregated’ (Casey, 2016: Executive Summary, para 29). In that claim, the association of segregation is with concentration – the idea the segregation is evidenced when people live in areas or are educated in schools where their own ethnic group forms a sizable percentage of the total number of residents or pupils. But where the quote says ‘some’, our initial findings suggest it would better be written as few, if a decrease in segregation is associated with increasing diversification.

This book provides a new study of ethnic segregation across English state schools in the period from 2011 to 2017. It examines whether patterns of school-level segregation decreased or increased over the period, how those patterns compare with patterns of residential segregation, whether particular types of schools are associated with greater ethnic separations, and whether socio-economic differences add to the geographies of ethnic segregation.

We find that high levels of ethnic segregation do exist between the majority White British and some other ethnic groups such as the Bangladeshi and Pakistani, more so at the primary than secondary level of schooling, and increased also for the more affluent of the White British. However, there is no compelling evidence that ethnic segregation is increasing – instead, the general trend is towards desegregation and greater ethnic diversity within local authority areas and their schools. Nor is there persuasive evidence that ethnic segregation is exacerbated greatly (at least, not directly) by the present system of school choice because school intakes appear comparable to the characteristics of their surrounding neighbourhoods in their ethnic composition.

Chapter 1 examines the recurring discourse over the last 20 years about segregation in the UK (more especially England), showing how it frames policy debates and media representations about segregation, social integration and community cohesion. Some of it promotes the idea that segregation is worsening, when it is not, and implies that segregation is ‘voluntary’, side-lining social and economic causes.

A more recent perspective is one of ‘white avoidance’ whereby the White British are said to avoid the places, including schools, containing greater percentages of non-White British groups. Such language suggests reactionary behaviour – the White British are said to avoid particular places – when, instead, they could be attracted to particular places, having the greater financial means to reside in them. Importantly, and as Chapter 2 explores, there are demographic factors to consider: the White British of school age have declined in number over recent years, a cyclical trend that can be linked back to the post-Second World War ‘baby boom’. Meanwhile, other ethnic groups – generally younger – have grown in number.

This book has examined ethnic segregation between English state schools and whether it has increased or decreased over the years since the last major data collection – the national census of 2011. It has found that high levels of ethnic segregation do exist across schools between the majority White British population and some other ethnic groups such as the Bangladeshi and Pakistani, more so at the primary than secondary level of schooling, and more for those of greater affluence among the White British. However, the general trend has been towards desegregation and greater ethnic diversity within local authority areas and their schools. Because school intakes are broadly comparable in their ethnic composition to the characteristics of their surrounding neighbourhoods, as neighbourhoods have become more diverse so too have schools. Please refer to the summary of key findings (which follows the References) for an overview of each chapter.

We acknowledge the limitations of the study. Most importantly, the data are not fully complete about pupils and their schools. In part, that is because we omitted schools out of the usual mainstream system. Occasionally there are absences or missing fields in the data although those are unlikely to introduce any major systematic bias to the results. What will is the absence of a very particular type of school – private schools that are fee-charging. Data about their pupils and about the schools’ social and ethnic compositions are not available in the same way nor to the same level of detail that they are for state schools, an omission that ought to be addressed given the charitable status of many private schools and their need to show that they are beneficial to the public. It is hard to fully address debates on social selection and the role of education in driving social mobility, without having data from an important, distinctive and – in so far as it charges fees – socially selective part of the sector. And our analysis has necessarily been confined to England only.

We are conscious, too, of the risk of over-objectification of groups and of the critiques against ‘thinking with ethnicity’ (Carter and Fenton, 2010).