School Segregation in Rio De Janeiro Public Schools: A Longitudinal Analysis

The paper presents school-level figures to analyse the impact of the educational transitions on school segregation for all Municipal Public Schools in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 2006 to 2011. Segregation here refers to an uneven distribution of pupils with similar characteristics across a school system, and this is assessed utilizing the Segregation Index (GS). The methodological approach tracks one specific cohort, that from the 1^st to 6^th grade (age range 6 - 11) of Fundamental School. Rio de Janeiro presents an enrolment legislation that combines two distinct approaches. On the one hand, parents have purported freedom of choice. There are no restrictions on allocating pupils regarding family place of residence, and the policy of free public transport for pupils in public schools, which, in theory, allows greater geographical scope in the search for a different school. On the other hand, school principals have partial control over their intakes, especially in the case of oversubscription. Four different indicators of potentially disadvantaged pupils were calculated: a) poverty; b) parents’ education; c) ethnic background; d) age/grade “distortion”. Interactions among these variables were also tested in order to focus on "superdeprived" pupils. The results indicate that: 1) around one third of the pupils change schools in the first four educational transitions – 1^st - 5^th grade; 2) the unfettered movement of pupils presents specific patterns that appear to increase the overall level of segregation; 3) between-school segregation declines in the last transition observed (5^th - 6^th grade), mainly due to a massive decline (45%) in the total number of schools. However, within school segregation (also called “school shift effect”), increases in the same period/transition. The interpretations suggest that the results observed can be attributed to bureaucratic patrimonialistic practices and loopholes in an unclear regulatory regime.