Private Subsidised Schools as a Factor of School Segregation by Socioeconomic Status in Spain

This research aims to determine the contribution of subsidised private schools to the overall school segregation by socio-economic level of publicly funded secondary schools in Spain and its autonomous communities. For this purpose, we use the PISA micro -data. The final sample consists of 28,808 students in 935 schools. As data analysis, we estimate the segregation of publicly funded schools and decompose it into the segregation within each sector (public and private subsidised) and between sectors using the Hutchens index for both, disadvantaged (25 % lower ESCS) and more advantaged (25% higher ESCS) students. The results show that the existence of a private subsidized school sector explains, on average, 19.2% of school segregation in Spain, with very important differences between regions, reaching 32,8% in the Community of Madrid for disadvantaged students. These findings show that private subsidized schools are, after residential segregation, the greatest source of segregation in Spain, and much higher than in neighbouring countries. We conclude that to limit school segregation, public schools must be promoted.