Does residential gentrification lead to school gentrification? Evidence from the Paris metropolitan area, methodological challenges and diversity of configuration

In the Paris metropolitan area, rising housing prices and the increasing selectivity of the most advantaged residential and school areas prompt upper-middle-class families to settle in working-class neighbourhoods of the inner suburbs. Drawing on a quantitative approach, this article examines whether this process of residential gentrification is accompanied by a corresponding school gentrification, understood as an increase in the share of children from these social groups in local public middle schools. At the intersection of urban sociology and the sociology of education, the joint analysis of residential and school dynamics across neighborhoods, school catchment areas and middle schools provides an empirical link between urban social recomposition and educational stratification, and sheds light on the mechanisms through which gentrification interacts with the educational landscape.