MUCH of the debate about the social composition of schools has focused on the working class/middle class divide. The focus is increasingly shifting to the disadvantages or advantages of ethnic segregation in the classroom.

Research by Simon Burgess, Professor of Economics at Bristol University, shows that ethnic segregation in schools is entrenched in areas where the minority ethnic population is above the 8 per cent national average.

In Tower Hamlets, London, where minority ethnic groups make up 48 per cent of the population, 47 per cent of secondary schools are described as “exclusively non-White” and 33 per cent have a white majority.

Concentrations of ethnic groups can be explained partly by residential segregation. Parents like to send their children to local schools and if the majority of the local population is Asian, the majority of the school population will be, too.

This does not explain, however, why the level of segregation in schools is often much greater than the residential segregation of the various ethnic groups. “Parents may want their children to go to the best-resourced schools, but they may also want them to go to schools where there are other children who are like them,” Professor Burgess said. “Economically, it is not good for the country to have ethnic segregation in schools because it does not promote socialisation or stability.”

Trevor Phillips, of the Commission for Racial Equality, said that ethnic segregation “does not help to prepare children for the real world.”

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