An economic analysis of parental choice of primary school in England

Researcher

• Principle Investigator: Deborah Wilson
• Co-applicant(s): Simon Burgess and Anna Vignoles (Institute of Education)

Grant information

• Funder: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
• Grant amount: £81,087.54
• Start and end date: October 2008 to September 2009
• ESRC award page: Parental choice

Outputs

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Project outline

Since 1988 parents in England have had the right to choose the school their child attends. In theory school choice leads to higher quality schools, as schools compete with one another to attract pupils. Of course for school choice to have this effect parents must have genuine choice. Different types of parents may have different preferences – and/or face different constraints – and thus make different choices. To understand how giving parents the ability to choose their child’s school impacts on the school system, we must start by understanding more about the school choice process. In this project we combine survey data from the Millennium Cohort Study, which includes detailed questions on choice of primary school, with administrative data on each state school pupil to address questions such as: What do parents want from schools? Do parents act strategically? Do different types of parents make different choices and/or value different things? To what extent do parents achieve their first choice primary school? And to what extent do the answers to these questions depend on socio-economic and ethnic background? The results will make a valuable contribution to the international academic literature on school choice and to the policy debate in Britain.