D.10. School Segregation Effects: the Educational and Social Impacts of Concentrated Vulnerabilities in Schools

The effects of school segregation are wide-ranging and extend beyond impacts on academic achievement, reproducing inequalities linked to social origins. Research has shown that segregation negatively affects educational outcomes and tracking, leading to lower performance in segregated schools and a concentration of vulnerable students in vocational and technical tracks. Its implications for social mobility have also been examined: attending a segregated school can predict limited social mobility, precariousness and reduced financial capital. In addition, segregation shapes students’ social capital by restricting opportunities for cross-class interaction, limiting access to diverse networks, and reducing exposure to information, aspirations, and resources that are unequally distributed. Other social outcomes - trust, civic engagement, and perceptions of belonging- can also be weakened when peer groups are highly homogeneous and schools are socially isolated. School segregation can also affect schools and territories through processes of stigmatization. Such processes can both result from and trigger avoidance behaviours, further concentrating disadvantaged students in already marginalized schools. This vicious cycle may ultimately undermine social cohesion, though empirical evidence on this relationship remains limited. We welcome contributions that advance understanding of the effects of school segregation, either corroborating or challenging existing evidence and disentangling its social impacts at the following levels:

• Individuals: educational outcomes, social mobility, income, social capital;
• Social Groups: educational and labour market inequalities among ethnic groups and/or social classes
• School systems: at the level of schools or broader organizational scales;
• Territories: mechanisms of stigmatization, relationships with urban transformations, and implications for social cohesion and collective social capital.