Failed Regulations and School Composition: Selective Admission Practices in Chilean Primary Schools

• In Event: Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: School Choice in International Contexts

Abstract

Admission regulations are central in undertanding issues of school mix, segregation, and educational justice. Using in 2013 a questionnaire for head teachers (n=581) in Santiago of Chile, we explore student selection practices in a context where schools are subject of competitiveness pressures within a voucher system. Despite being prohibited from 2009, half of the head teachers states using some mechanism to select students (play sessions, student testing or parents interview). Data suggest higher levels of students selection practices from private subsidised schools in comparison to public schools. Selectivity in admission is associated to lower levels of social and academic heterogeneity of the schools surveyed.

Authors

• Alejandro Carrasco, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

• Gabriel Gutierrez

• Carolina Flores, Agencia de Calidad de la Educación, Chile