Gentrification, education and exclusionary displacement in East London

In this paper we address the issue of displacement which has been at the core of debates over gentrification. Taking Peter Marcuse’s (1985) discussion of different types of displacement as a starting point, we draw on evidence from a recent study conducted in East London to argue that there is clear evidence of ‘exclusionary displacement’ and ‘displacement pressure’. This however was found not in the field of residential and tenurial displacement but in that of education and specifically the choice of schooling. We draw on interview and other data to show how the incoming middle classes in the Victoria Park area of inner East London have not only displaced existing poor residents but also many of the less affluent middle class from the favoured state schools in the area by adopting some schools and demonising others through the use of their cultural power to define some schools as ‘unacceptable’. Our argument is that the consequences of this can either take the form of direct exclusionary displacement when middle class pressure on favoured schools leads to local people being unable to get their children into them because of ‘distance from school’ selection criteria or, equally, by labelling other schools as unacceptable, they exert displacement pressure on those who send their children to them with the consequence that they leave the area.