Sweden's school choice reform and equality of opportunity

Arbeitspapier

This study analyses whether the Swedish school choice reform, enacted in 1992, had different effects on students from different socio-economic backgrounds. We use detailed geographical data on students' and schools' locations to construct measures of the degree of potential choice. This allows us to study the effects of choice opportunities among public schools, whereas previous studies have focused on newly opened private schools. Our results suggest small positive or no effects of choice opportunities, depending on specification and outcome. We find no strong evidence of differences between subgroups; if anything, effects tend to be slightly more positive for disadvantaged groups, such as students from low-income families. Taken together, the results indicate that students from a socio-economically disadvantaged or immigrant background were not harmed by the reform.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: ZEW Discussion Papers ; No. 14-041

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Education and Inequality ; Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models; Quantile Regressions
• Subject: school choice ; school competition ; treatment evaluation ; cognitive and non-cognitive skills

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Edmark, Karin ; Frölich, Markus ; Wondratschek, Verena
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)
• (where): Mannheim
• (when): 2014

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/98714
• URN: urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-madoc-369031
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET