An agent-based model of school tracking, accountability, and segregation
An agent-based model of school tracking, accountability, and segregation
Extant research on the effect of education system characteristics on school socio-economic segregation does not consider education as a complex system. This paper’s contribution lies in using agent-based modelling to simulate the effect of the interaction between families’ strategies for school selection and two education system characteristics: tracking–a system where students of different academic abilities are separated in different schools–and school accountability–the public availability of information on school quality. The model shows that school tracking and accountability tend to at the same time attenuate and increase school socio-economic segregation, but overall both policies tend to exacerbate segregation by eliciting competition for the best schools. The policy implications are: (i) tracking has a stronger exacerbating effect on segregation than accountability, (ii) the two polices interact to create compounding effects and (iii) by reducing residential segregation between families the segregating effect on schools of the two policies diminishes dramatically.
Agent-based model, school accountability, school choice, school segregation, school tracking
Pensiero, Nicola
a4abb10f-51db-493d-9dcc-5259e526e96b
Brede, Markus
bbd03865-8e0b-4372-b9d7-cd549631f3f7
18 March 2024
Pensiero, Nicola
a4abb10f-51db-493d-9dcc-5259e526e96b
Brede, Markus
bbd03865-8e0b-4372-b9d7-cd549631f3f7
Pensiero, Nicola and Brede, Markus
(2024)
An agent-based model of school tracking, accountability, and segregation.
Journal of Simulation.
(doi:10.1080/17477778.2024.2326138).
Abstract
Extant research on the effect of education system characteristics on school socio-economic segregation does not consider education as a complex system. This paper’s contribution lies in using agent-based modelling to simulate the effect of the interaction between families’ strategies for school selection and two education system characteristics: tracking–a system where students of different academic abilities are separated in different schools–and school accountability–the public availability of information on school quality. The model shows that school tracking and accountability tend to at the same time attenuate and increase school socio-economic segregation, but overall both policies tend to exacerbate segregation by eliciting competition for the best schools. The policy implications are: (i) tracking has a stronger exacerbating effect on segregation than accountability, (ii) the two polices interact to create compounding effects and (iii) by reducing residential segregation between families the segregating effect on schools of the two policies diminishes dramatically.
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An agent-based model of school tracking accountability and segregation
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Accepted/In Press date: 27 February 2024
e-pub ahead of print date: 18 March 2024
Published date: 18 March 2024
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Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Keywords:
Agent-based model, school accountability, school choice, school segregation, school tracking
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 487645
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/487645
ISSN: 1747-7778
PURE UUID: 92e87836-831e-4e5d-b66f-735bce132751
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Date deposited: 29 Feb 2024 17:56
Last modified: 02 May 2024 01:57
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Author:
Markus Brede
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