Ethnic Inequality in Choice-driven Education Systems

The authors ask whether choice-driven education systems, with comprehensive schools and mass education at the secondary and tertiary level, represented in this article by England and Sweden, provide educational opportunities for ethnic minorities. In studying educational attainment, the authors make a theoretical distinction between mechanisms connected with school performance on the one hand (primary effects) and educational choice, given performance, on the other (secondary effects). Using large national data sets and recently developed methods, they show that performance effects tend to depress the educational attainment of most, although not all, ethnic minorities, whereas choice effects increase the transition rates of these students. This pattern is repeated at the transition to university education. These results are true for many immigrant categories in both England and Sweden, although immigrant students are a heterogeneous group. Black Caribbean students in England and children of Turkish and South American descent in Sweden fare worst, while several Asian groups do extremely well. The authors conclude that it may be a generic feature of choice-driven school systems in Western societies to benefit non-European immigrants, and they discuss some possible explanations for this.