Local Indices of Segregation with Application to Social Segregation between London's Secondary Schools,2003–08/09

Segregation is a spatial outcome of spatial processes which, therefore, needs to be measured spatially. This is the axiom from which local indices of segregation are developed and applied to the patterns of admission observed for cohorts of pupils entering London's state-funded secondary schools in each of the years from 2003 to 2008. The indices—local indices of difference, isolation, and of concentration—are used to measure social segregation within education authorities, to detect differences between types of selecting and nonselecting schools, and, longitudinally, to consider changes over time. Sizeable differences in the proportions of pupils eligible for free school meals recruited by apparently competing schools are found, with selective schools especially and also faith schools underrecruiting such pupils. Although there is some evidence that social segregation has decreased over the period, the trend is considered to be an artefact of the use of free school meals as a measure of disadvantage—a measure which the author ultimately questions.