Equity or Threat? How School Leadership Teams Are Responding to School Desegregation Policies in Barcelona

• In Event: Contested Educational Policies: Power, Segregation, and Equity in Comparative Perspective

Proposal

School segregation based on socioeconomic status —meaning the unequal distribution of students due to socioeconomic factors— remains a persistent threat to educational equity and social cohesion across many countries. Beyond limiting equitable access to educational opportunities, this phenomenon deepens social inequalities, weakens community ties, and undermines the overall quality of the education system.
While some cities have begun to design targeted responses to this social challenge, desegregation policies remain in their early stages and are rarely evaluated, which limits understanding of their scope and effectiveness.
In this context, the city of Barcelona serves as a paradigmatic case. Despite a history of innovative local policies aimed at reducing school segregation, the city continues to show alarming levels of unequal student concentration. This paradox has driven the implementation of ambitious initiatives, such as the “Shock Plan Against School Segregation” (2018). In 2021, this strategy was further reinforced by the new Admissions Decree launched by the Government of Catalonia, which consolidated and expanded the plan’s measures with the aim of improving the distribution of socially vulnerable students across schools.
The recent nature of these policies raises key questions: How are they interpreted by school stakeholders? What impact do they have on institutional and social dynamics within the education system? What barriers do they face in their implementation? The limited international research on the subject makes it difficult to clearly answer these questions—despite the fact that the success of desegregation policies largely depends on their ability to transform practices, narratives, and vested interests within the system. This contribution, part of the DESEGPOL project, aims to address these questions by analyzing how school leadership teams interpret and implement desegregation policies, with the goal of generating useful evidence to inform public decision-making and advanced insights into research on educational equity.
The implementation of public policies is always mediated by specific contexts that shape how they are interpreted and applied by those involved (Ball et al., 2012). In the case of school desegregation policies, this means that school leadership teams do not simply “apply” policies—they make sense of them and “translate” them into concrete practices (Ball et al., 2012). These interpretations are shaped by cultural repertoires, symbolic boundaries, and value systems rooted in their social environments (Hall & Lamont, 2013). School segregation involves not only the unequal distribution of students but also unequal access to resources, opportunities, and status. In desegregation contexts, schools that have historically enrolled a higher proportion of vulnerable students may benefit from such policies through processes of destigmatization and improvement in status. In contrast, schools with more socially homogeneous and privileged populations may risk losing their differentiation in the local educational marketplace. Moreover, as Bell (1980) argues, desegregation policies often emerge during moments of “interest convergence,” when structural conditions that once sustained segregation begin to shift. In the case of Barcelona, for example, the push against segregation coincides with demographic decline and an oversupply of school placements—making it particularly relevant to examine how school leadership teams are responding to these measures in the current moment.
This analysis is based on semi-structured interviews with leadership teams from 32 schools located in various neighborhoods and representing a range of social profiles.
The interviews conducted reveal the presence of narratives that, while not openly challenging the principle of equity, express reservations or criticisms toward desegregation policies. For analyzing the interviews, the theoretical framework proposed by Albert O. Hirschman (2020 [1991]) proved useful. Hirschman identifies three recurrent forms of resistance to public policies: the “jeopardy thesis,” the “perversity thesis,” and the “futility thesis.” Below is a summary of the arguments identified in the interviews, organized according to these three logics—while also attending to the nuances and overlaps among them:
1. Jeopardy: “Vulnerable children who attend schools with a higher social composition feel like ‘fish out of water’”
This line of argument suggests that, even if the policy is well-intentioned, it may produce negative consequences for those it aims to help. A frequent example is the concern that children from vulnerable backgrounds might feel uncomfortable, out of place, or emotionally insecure when enrolled in schools with predominantly middle- or upper-class students. While this discourse may appear protective, warning against potential harm to these students’ self-esteem or emotional well-being, it can also serve to defend the status quo or preserve a school’s previous social balance. Moreover, it reflects a pessimistic view of education’s potential as a tool for inclusion and social cohesion.
2. Perversity: “Those who don’t need it are the ones who benefit”
This argument holds that the policy not only fails to achieve its intended goals but actually produces the opposite effect: it ends up benefiting those who should not be beneficiaries, while harming those most in need. This type of reasoning suggests that the policy is either poorly designed or poorly implemented, which ultimately makes it unjust. Rather than addressing inequalities, it reproduces or even deepens them. It points to a distortion of objectives, a manipulation of the system, or an ineffective application of vulnerability criteria.
Also included within this line of thinking is the concern that the policy could lead to the withdrawal of more affluent families, thereby disrupting the existing social balance within certain schools.
3. Futility: The Ineffectiveness of the Intervention
From this perspective, the policy—though well-intentioned—is seen as incapable of transforming social reality. This reflects a form of structural skepticism: social inequality is viewed as too deeply rooted to be addressed through educational policy alone. The urban context and family strategies are also highlighted as powerful barriers that are difficult to alter. This resigned outlook suggests that segregation stems from structural dynamics beyond the reach of public intervention.
In addition to these three main argumentative lines, a conspiracy-like rhetoric also is identified—one that questions the very legitimacy of the policy, interpreting it as a covert deliberate attempt to undermine State-subsidized private schools and to restrict families' right to choose.
Finally, the article also provides an analysis of the school and social contexts in which these narratives tend to emerge most strongly.

Authors

• Martí Manzano Moliner, Universitat de Barcelona

• Antonina Levatino, Universidad de Sevilla

• Lluís Parcerisa, University of Barcelona