School composition and pupils’ expectations by origin and ethnicity: an approach to unofficial school segregation

Abstract

Social inequalities in Spain have been growing during the last few years, and so have been the school segregation levels in disadvantaged urban areas. This research has been carried out in four secondary schools in the Northern Area of the city of Alicante; an area with high concentration of immigrants and Roma population. Facing the lack of exhaustive official school statistics, the aim of this study is to reveal the racial and ethnical composition into these schools and to analyse some of theirs pupils’ future expectations. The findings of the fieldwork show that official data are far from reflecting the segregated reality of some schools, a situation that has negative effects on the pupils’ expectations and hinders the design and the implementation of social and educational policies in order to mitigate school segregation and inequality of opportunities.