Abstract

Several educational systems have introduced market-oriented reforms in the last two decades. Recent research has suggested that these schemes may increase the socioeconomic segregation of the school systems, especially when designed to boost between-school competition (Verger A, Fontdevila C, Zancajo A, The privatization of education: a political economy of global education reform. International perspectives on education reform. Teachers College Press, 2016). From an international comparative perspective, this chapter explores how between-school socioeconomic segregation has changed in 33 school systems in the last two decades and its association with features of the educational markets. Drawing on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) records from 2000 and 2018, the analysis provides segregation (dissimilarity) measures for countries with heterogeneous levels of private provision, academic selectivity, and school fees. The findings stress that the segregation of socioeconomically disadvantaged students remains a significant challenge for most educational systems. However, the estimations suggest no clear relationship between the evolution of school market features under analysis and changes in socioeconomic segregation. The complexities of reducing the system segmentation and its relation to school reform are discussed in the conclusions.