SCHOOLCHOICE

This research project seeks to advance our understanding of the causes and consequences of social segregation in middle schools. To do so, we first ask why parents opt out of the local public middle school. We investigate three prominent explanations: imperfect information on schools' characteristics, inaccurate beliefs regarding the size of peer effects, and coordination failure. Second, we ask whether low-cost interventions addressing parents’ beliefs and coordination problems can increase enrollment in local public schools. The first intervention provides parents with information regarding schools’ characteristics and findings from scientific research on the size of peer effects. The second intervention seeks to facilitate coordination among parents by introducing them to other parents linked to the same local public middle school and by providing them with information on the preferences of other parents. Third, we ask how the increase in public school enrollment impacts students’ academic performance and socio-emotional skills. To answer these questions, we will deploy a randomized field experiment in 150 French secondary schools nationally. We will also conduct two extensive surveys of parents and students and analyze rich administrative data from the Statistical Department of the Ministry of Education. This project will contribute to three different literatures. First, it contributes to the literature on the determinants of parents' preferences regarding school characteristics by disentangling parents' preferences regarding ability, social, and ethnic composition and by providing the first empirical evidence on the effect of information regarding scientific evidence on weak to null peer effects on preferences. Second, it contributes to the literature on the determinants of social segregation by studying an overlooked aspect of parents' decisions by focusing on their coordination problem and testing whether a low-cost intervention can reduce social segregation. Finally, it contributes to the literature on peer effects and social cohesion by providing new empirical evidence from a field experiment on the impact of exposure to more diverse peers on personal well-being, school climate, and prosocial attitudes. Findings from this research project will inform the design of policies to encourage local public school enrollment.