10.1177/0895904803254963EDUCATIONAL POLICY / September 2003SJOERD KARSTEN et al. School Choice and Ethnic Segregation

Since the 1980s, ethnic segregation has become a feature of the educational landscape in many European countries. The article explores how school choice has influenced this stratification in Dutch primary schools. In contrast to earlier research, the authors found that the ethnic composition of schools plays an important role in the school choice of parents. The study shows that nativeDutch parents are significantlymore interested in amatch between their social and cultural background and the pupil composition of schools than eth-nic minority parents. Minority parents prefer schools with a good reputation and that focus on their educational problems (e.g., learning proper Dutch). Both groups of parents generally reject predominately “non-White ” schools. The authors also found other factors influencing the segregation patterns of schools (e.g., competition between schools and admission policies)