Parents’ selective school choices play a key role in exacerbating school segregation across the globe. As a result, numerous studies have investigated parents’ choice practices, while less attention has been paid to the role of the institutional context itself. Taking the introduction of free primary school choice in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, as an example, in this article, I seek to provide insights into the motivations behind the policy reform and its subsequent effects. The article illustrates how the new admission system changes not only the roles, motivations, and strategies of parents, but also those of primary schools. Consequently, the abolition of primary school catchment areas led neither to more equality in choice nor to a responsible competition between primary schools. Instead, it reinforces social divisions and symbolic differences between primary schools.
The role of ethnic school segregation for adolescents’ religious salience
