Spanish publicly-subsidised private schools and equality of school choice

This study analyses the system of Spanish publicly-subsidised private schools from the perspective of its contribution to the equalisation of opportunities in school choice. The theoretical framework is based on the contributions of researchers into school choice policies, while the empirical application uses a 2005 questionnaire answered by the final-year secondary school students of the Spanish region of Aragon. We conclude that the system of Spanish publicly-subsidised private schools has not entirely facilitated the integration of students from different socioeconomic strata. A probit model is estimated in the last section in order to discover which factors determine the choice of a publicly-subsidised private school. It is found that the higher the socioeconomic status, the higher the probability of choosing such schools, suggesting that the segregation found in this paper may be caused partly by the choice patterns of Spanish families.