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Unequal Opportunity: School and Neighborhood Segregation in the USA

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A Correction to this article was published on 20 November 2020

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Abstract

School and neighborhood segregation are intertwined in complex ways. Schools reflect segregated neighborhoods, and school considerations reinforce neighborhood segregation. Over the past 25 years, racial segregation in neighborhoods and schools has slightly declined in terms of sorting, though children remain racially isolated in their neighborhoods and schools. Income segregation between schools, school districts, and neighborhoods has increased among children. Recent educational policy and demographic changes may break the link between neighborhood and school segregation. As population diversity increases, the proliferation of school choice leads schools and neighborhoods to resemble one another less, with schools becoming more segregated than their local neighborhoods. Regardless of the complicated and changing ways neighborhood and school segregation shape and reshape one another, segregation in both contexts remains high in the twenty-first century. Drawing on administrative data, I provide a quantitative portrait of the schools and neighborhoods of children from different racial/ethnic groups in 2015, documenting stark inequalities in these contexts. I conclude with a discussion of why segregation matters, what can be done about it, and why something must be done.

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Change history

  • 20 November 2020

    The original version of this article unfortunately contained an error. The author would like to correct the error with this erratum.

Notes

  1. I use “Hispanic” to be consistent with the wording of the data collection instruments.

  2. For reference, in 2015–2016, the US public school student body was 26% Hispanic, 15% Black, 48% White, and 5% Asian; if there were no segregation, each group should attend a school with these proportions.

  3. ACS has a lower sampling rate than the Decennial Census, so analyzing small geographic units like tracts requires five-year aggregations.

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    Ann Owens

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Owens, A. Unequal Opportunity: School and Neighborhood Segregation in the USA. Race Soc Probl 12, 29–41 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-019-09274-z

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