Abstract:
This paper examines what happens to school socioeconomic mix within the context of public school improvement and revitalisation in Australia, a strongly marketised setting. Attempts to revitalise schools with poor performance often target those that are already socially segregated and losing enrolments. Revitalisation may include new curriculum programs, changes to leadership, new buildings, or a new name, as part of attempts to improve market position. While the stated goal is typically to improve outcomes, creating a more stable and socially integrated student body may be a secondary goal. An unintended effect may also be a process of gentrification by which a middle-class student body displaces a working-class student body, with negative consequences. In order to examine the relationship between revitalisation and student composition, institutional data from the MySchool website was used to map shifts in enrolments for a sample of schools identified by media reporting having shown noteworthy improvement. The results suggest that improvement is strongly linked to increased enrolments of middle-class students and increased overall enrolments. This suggests that improvements may not reflect real improvements in learning and teaching that are responsive to existing student populations. Further, the study shows apparent individual school improvement risks exacerbating segregation in nearby schools.