Introduction

Because segregation is the spatial outcome of spatial processes it makes sense to measure it in spatially intelligent ways. To that end, this chapter applies innovative methods of geocomputation (see also Chapters Three and Four, this volume), with particular emphasis on local indices of ethnic segregation to examine the claim that London's schools are ‘sleepwalking towards Johannesburg’. It does so by looking at the flows of pupils from primary to secondary schools, using those flows to analyse the spatial patterns that form in the distribution of ethnic groups between schools, and to determine the geographies of competition between schools. Those geographies are codified in the form of a spatial weights matrix to compare any school with locally competing schools, giving a local index of segregation. The chapter finds that although there is ‘segregation’ in the sense that the distribution of the ethnic groups differs from randomness, from a nearest school assignment and with some substantial differences between geographically proximate schools, the evidence, focusing on the Black African and Bangladeshi groups, is not that ethnic segregation is increasing but that it is fluctuating with demographic changes over the period 2003 to 2008/09. The core argument advanced by the chapter is that segregation should be measured within its local context.

Context

The headline and text above appeared in the guardian.co.uk with another version featuring the following day in the print edition of it and other British newspapers. The report is of a presentation given by the vice-chair of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC, an association of 250 fee-charging schools) in which he voiced alarm at the way the capital was alleged to be dividing into ghettos and “becoming a silo society”.

The language mimics that used by Trevor Philips in a speech given in September 2005 as chair of the Commission for Racial Equality in which he stated that the country was “sleepwalking into New Orleansstyle racial segregation”.