Local indices of segregation with application to social segregation between London’s secondary schools, 2003 – 2008/9

Segregation is a spatial outcome of spatial processes that therefore needs to be measured spatially. This is the axiom from which local indices of segregation are developed and applied to the patterns of admission observed for cohorts of pupils entering London’s state-funded secondary schools in each of the years from 2003 to 2008. The indices – local indices of difference, isolation and of concentration – are used to measure social segregation within education authorities, to detect differences between types of selecting and non-selecting schools, and, longitudinally, to consider changes over time. Sizeable differences in the proportions of free school meal eligible pupils recruited by apparently competing schools are found, with selective schools especially and also faith schools under-recruiting such pupils. Whilst there is some evidence that social segregation has decreased over the period, the trend is considered to be an artefact of using free school meals as a measure of disadvantage, a measure that the paper ultimately questions.