Abstract

MURILLO, Javier  and  GRANA, Raquel. Deepening School Segregation by Socioeconomic Level in Latin America. A Study in Four Prototypical Countries. Rev. colomb. educ. [online]. 2022, n.84, e100.  Epub Oct 26, 2022. ISSN 0120-3916.  https://doi.org/10.17227/rce.num84-11697.

The objective of this research is to deepen school segregation by socioeconomic level in primary schools in Latin America, establishing the segregation profile of four prototypical countries: Colombia, Peru, Dominican Republic and Uruguay. For this, a secondary exploitation of four national census evaluation databases has been carried out, with a total sample of 961,376 students enrolled in 27,116 schools. To estimate the segregation profiles, this research has applied the Gorard, Square Root and Isolation indices, calculated for 19 minority groups. The results show, first of all, that Colombia presents very high levels of segregation for all groups of students, but especially in students from families with a lower socioeconomic level. Peru shows figures similar to Colombia. However, the results indicate that it has the highest segregation figures for groups with a lower socioeconomic level (from P5 to P15), surpassing Colombia in these points. Uruguay, on its side, has a more moderate segregation rate for students from families of lower socioeconomic status, but it is very high for those from higher status. Finally, the Dominican Republic presents a profile with a more moderate segregation rate for all groups. With all this, we can conclude the importance of deepening knowledge of school segregation, overcoming the traditional vision of reducing it to a number. In addition, it has become evident the need to design public education policies that are more adjusted to the situation of each country and each group.

Keywords : school segregation; Latin Americans; primary education; socioeconomic status; educational policy.

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