This article describes the social and economic "segregation" of students between schools in England, and the likely causes of its levels and changes over time. It involves a re-analysis of the intakes to all schools in England 1989-2011, and shows how strongly clustered the students are in particular schools. The pattern for primary-age…

Previous international work has shown that clustering pupils with similar characteristics in particular schools yields no clear academic benefit, and can be disadvantageous both socially and personally. Understanding how and why this clustering happens, and how it may be reduced, is therefore important for policy. Yet previous work has tended to…

This article has two chief purposes. It presents a substantive reappraisal of a decade of school choice research in the UK. This reappraisal is used as a case study illustrating the elasticity of the notion of social science "evidence", when wielded by academics in an area where strong ideological preconceptions struggle with the lack of…