Redesigning choice to tackle school segregation: the impact of Barcelona’s desegregation policies

The relationship between school choice and segregation remains a contentious issue in both academic and policy spheres. In recent years, the redesign of school choice policies has gained traction as a strategy to mitigate their negative impacts on school segregation. In this context, Barcelona (Spain) implemented desegregation policies in 2019, primarily based on redesigning specific school choice policy instruments to reduce the uneven distribution of socially disadvantaged students among schools. This study examines the impact of these policies on school segregation and explores how their effectiveness varies according to the characteristics of different areas within the city. The findings indicate that desegregation policies have reduced the uneven distribution of socially disadvantaged students and their isolation in specific schools. However, our results also show that, in each area, impacts are mediated by factors such as residential segregation, the enrolment in subsidized private schools, the share of students schooling outside their educational area, and the prevalence of siblings already attending a school, which confers priority access in admissions. We argue that the relative success of Barcelona’s school choice reform in addressing school segregation lies in its shift from a coordinated to a controlled choice model.