The role of strategic reports and subjective admission beliefs in explaining the ‘ethnic admissions gap’ in English secondary schools

Abstract

Data from the English secondary school admissions cycle reveals a substantial ethnic gap in the proportion accessing their chosen schools. Children from minority ethnic groups are, on average, 17% less likely to be admitted into their top-ranked secondary school, compared to white children. This gap is large even after controlling for socio-economic status and prior attainment. However, constraints on the length of preference lists mean that stated preferences may not be truthful, as parents may have incentives to strategise by excluding preferred schools. By accounting for strategic stated preferences and biased beliefs about chances of admission, this paper recovers parametric estimates of preference parameters and the degree of strategic selection. To examine the relative contribution of geographic sorting, strategies, and market design (mechanism and admission rules), the corrected revealed preference estimates are used to estimate expected welfare under three scenarios. The analysis reveals that both underlying preferences and strategising behaviour exhibit substantial heterogeneity by ethnicity, income and ability. When comparing welfare, I find that differences in admissions priority between white and minority ethnic families create small but significant and consistent differences in welfare. However, larger welfare differences are due to differences in preferences and strategy between the two groups.