A new study by researchers from the UAB, the Institut Metròpoli and the UB warns that the transformation of neighbourhoods is also redefining schools, and calls for public policies that can connect urban planning to educational equity. The article calls for educational equity to be the guiding principle of urban policies and, at the same time, for territorial justice to become a constitutive element of educational policies.
Gentrification alters urban spaces and city neighbourhoods and their streets, homes and businesses. It also transforms the educational community and schools. But how does the arrival of new middle classes, often transnational, affect educational centres in historically working-class neighbourhoods? To what extent are urban and school policies prepared to face the new inequalities arising from this phenomenon?
These are some of the main issues discussed in Una aproximació a la gentrificació escolar a Barcelona: mecanismes i implicacions per la política pública [An approach to school gentrification in Barcelona: mechanisms and implications for public policy] by resesarchers Marcel Pagès, from the Faculty of Education of the University of Barcelona (UB); Andreu Termes, from the Institut Metròpoli; and Xavier Bonal, from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). The article forms part of the GENTRED research project, coordinated by the UAB and dedicated to studying the effects of gentrification on educational inequalities in the city of Barcelona.
The article is part of the monograph Education and territorial justice: the role of municipalities in reducing inequalities of the Institut Metròpoli's journal Papers. The study offers one of the first systematic conceptualisations of the phenomenon of school gentrification in Barcelona and identifies its effects on schools.
School gentrification: an emerging but not very visible phenomenon
Historically, the relationship between gentrification and school processes has been scarcely studied, a fact that contrasts with the extensive analyses carried out from economic, social and urban perspectives.
The article shows that school gentrification is not simply an automatic consequence of the transformation of neighbourhoods. It follows its own process with specific dynamics in which families, schools and public administrations interact.
Barcelona is also a particularly unique case. The city combines intense processes of touristification, transnational migrations, and transformations in the housing market that have profoundly modified the social composition of many neighbourhoods. These urban dynamics also end up affecting schools: there are changes in family profiles, educational expectations, forms of participation, and even the social reputation of schools and family preferences, which alters the dynamics of school choice in local educational markets.
According to Marcel Pagès, Andreu Termes and Xavier Bonal, school gentrification occurs when families with high cultural and economic capital (generally migrated from high-income countries) enter schools that, historically, educated students from working classes and/or of migrant origin. This generates transformations in school culture and, often, processes of symbolic or material displacement.
"School gentrification has a deeply contradictory dimension. It can generate obvious risks of displacement, cultural colonisation and loss of centrality of the most vulnerable families within the school. But it can also open up opportunities to reduce segregation if the necessary policies are activated," the authors state.
Seven mechanisms to help understand school gentrification
One of the main results of the work is the identification of seven mechanisms that explain how school gentrification develops in Barcelona. Based on extensive qualitative fieldwork in neighbourhoods and schools in the city, the authors describe patterns of behaviour and relationships that contribute to the reconfiguration of educational communities.
Among the most important mechanisms are:
- School competition strategies to attract certain types of family profiles.
- The legitimisation of school changes through pro-diversity discourses and pedagogical innovation.
- The use of symbolic and school-based codes to connect better with "gentrifying" middle-class families with higher education.
- The mechanisms of social homophily, that is, the tendency of families to relate to and attend school with people from similar social groups.
- The pro-equity provisions of some progressive families who choose schools with diversity, while maintaining a certain "risk control".
- The construction of moral stories that allow us to justify certain educational choices without perceiving them as exclusionary.
L'estudi subratlla que la gentrificació escolar no és fruit d'una voluntat explícita d'exclusió. Al contrari, emergeix sovint de decisions quotidianes de famílies i centres educatius que, acumulades, acaben produint noves formes de segregació i desigualtat.
A better reputation… but also higher risk of segregation
The research indicates that these processes can generate effects perceived as positive (improvement of the external reputation of centres, increase in resources or pedagogical renewal, transformation of ghettoised centres), but also unwanted consequences from the point of view of educational equity. Among the main risks identified are the involuntary marginalisation of families with less cultural capital, the over-representation of certain social profiles in participation spaces (and at the same time the exclusion of others), and the symbolic reclassification of educational centres within local school markets.
The authors warn that, without public intervention, urban gentrification may end up reinforcing existing educational and territorial inequalities. To address these challenges, Xavier Bonal, principal investigator of the project, points out the need to coordinate a multi-sectoral public policy agenda: "The research carried out by the GENTRED project shows that school gentrification must be incorporated as a central issue in the agenda of educational policies and school planning. We need urban policies oriented towards educational equity and educational policies that incorporate territorial justice."
A necessary but still pending political agenda
The article concludes with a clear call to incorporate the educational dimension into urban policies and, at the same time, the territorial dimension into educational policies. The researchers argue that school gentrification cannot be addressed in isolation or with simple solutions. They call for contextual policies (adapted to the characteristics of the city's gentrification) and coordinated between administrations that include urban planning, housing actions and also specific school planning measures.
For example, public policies in the field of urban planning and housing to address urban segregation and gentrification would need to include: urban and land actions such as the expropriation of developable land, the rehabilitation of the housing stock, the promotion of social rental, the regulation of tourist rentals, and other similar measures.
Among the educational recommendations proposed by researchers are:
- Reduce the oversupply of school places.
- Review zoning systems.
- Strengthen proximity criteria.
- Promote cohesion policies within schools.
- Promote participation and community processes in the school environment from a perspective of inclusion and equity.
- Develop teaching strategies that favour coexistence, cohesion and integration in school contexts beyond simple learning together.
For the authors, the main lesson is clear: urban inequalities and educational inequalities mutually reinforce each other. Therefore, any future strategy should incorporate "educational equity as a guiding principle of urban policies, and territorial justice as a constitutive element of educational policies".
In a context of increasing gentrification in cities, the article "An approach to school gentrification in Barcelona: mechanisms and implications for public policy" and the GENTRED project open up a pioneering line of research to understand how new urban geographies redefine educational opportunities.
