Assessing local socioeconomic desegregation: The effects of successive decrees regulating school choice in the Belgian French-speaking community

Abstract

Assuming that free school choice is one of the parameters contributing to segregation in the Belgian educational system, the government implemented decrees to alter school enrolment policies in order to regulate school choice. In this study, two statistical approaches (a ‘Lorenz’ index and a multilevel one) have been used to measure the evolution of segregation from 2006 to 2015 exploiting two databases (administrative student count and the Programme for International Student Assessment). The results do not provide any support to the claim that there has been a reduction in school segregation, and they stress that the decrees are inefficient concerning this objective.

Segregación Escolar por Nivel Socioeconómico en Educación Primaria en América Latina y el Caribe

“…Esto, tal y como se refleja en la revisión elaborada por Murillo (2016), significa que incluso si la proporción de estudiantes del grupo minoritario se altera, los resultados del Índice de Segregación de Gorard se mantendrán invariables siempre y cuando se distribuya a cada una de las escuelas en las mismas proporciones que las cifras originales. Entre las investigaciones más recientes que utilizan este índice para analizar la segregación escolar se encuentran los trabajo de Bartholo y otros (2020), Danhier y Friant (2019), Gorard (2022), Murillo y Graña (2020a), Martínez-Garrido y otros (2020) y Murillo y Martínez-Garrido (2018a, 2018b), entre otros.…”

The instrumentation of public subsidies for private schools: Different regulatory models with concurrent equity implications

“…The equivalence logic has clear consequences from a regulatory point of view. Firstly, private subsidized and public schools are funded through the same scheme, and the level of public funding for both sectors is essentially the same (Danhier and Friant, 2019;De Groof, 2004;Patrinos, 2013). In the majority of cases, the public funding that schools receive depends partially on the socioeconomic characteristics of their student body, in order to compensate for the social stratification between private subsidized and public schools (for instance, through formula funding arrangements).…”

“…In the Frenchspeaking community of Belgium, this type of evidence was actively used by civil society organizations to denounce market dynamics in the educational system as a key driver of socioeconomic segregation between schools (Dupriez et al, 2018). As Danhier and Friant (2019) point out, the public and political debate around the relationship between private subsidized education and school segregation is essential in explaining the centrality that the distribution of students among schools acquired, in the reforms adopted during the 2000s.…”

“…The possibility of calibrating PSPS and related instruments to guarantee the achievement of certain equity standards or goals is put into question in light of the available evidence. For instance, the choice and funding reforms adopted in Belgium, both in the French-speaking and Flemish communities have had little or no impact on reducing school segregation (Danhier and Friant, 2019;Sierens et al, 2011). Similarly, the legal prohibition of selective admission in Chile in 2009 and the adoption of a targeted voucher scheme in 2008 did not prevent schools from continuing to select students based on their socioeconomic or educational characteristics (Carrasco et al, 2017;Elacqua and Santos, 2013).…”

Education and digital inequalities during COVID‐19 confinement: From the perspective of teachers in the French speaking Community of Belgium

“…When compared to other countries, the social and cultural characteristics of families have a greater impact on test‐scores of students in Belgium—in mathematics, reading and sciences. Other research (e.g., De Witte & Hindriks, 2017 ) highlights little social mobility and considerable inequalities between schools in Belgium, especially in FWB (see Danhier & Friant, 2019 , on impact of free school choice; Dupriez & Dumay, 2006 , on impact of differentiated school systems; Lafontaine & Monseur, 2011 , on social and academic segregation, etc.). In order to reduce these educational inequalities, a large‐scale reform called the Pacte pour un enseignement d'excellence [Pact for an excellent education] was commenced in 2015.…”