Cultural Attitudes, Parental Aspirations, and Socioeconomic Influence on Post-Primary School Selection in Northern Ireland

ABSTRACT

This research considers implications of planned reform of the education system in Northern Ireland for school choice and travel behavior. The school system is currently segregated on the basis of religion and academic ability at age 11. Discrete Choice Models based on a Stated Preference experiment included in a program of parental surveys yielded insights into likely responses of parents to both current options and potential reforms. Surprisingly, most parents would not be adverse to the removal of religious segregation from schools while availability of free school transport is not a significant factor in the school choice process. Aspirations of academic quality are higher among more affluent parents.

KEYWORDS:

• education reform
• parental aspiration
• school choice
• stated preference

Notes

^1. 2004 is the last year for which comparable data on eligibility rates in each of the three countries is available.

^2. The Northern Ireland Assembly is the devolved legislature of Northern Ireland. The House of Lords and the House of Commons at Westminster approved a devolution order under the Northern Ireland Act 1998. The order allowed for the transfer of certain powers from Westminster to the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont. The Northern Ireland Executive Committee is the Government of Northern Ireland, made up of Ministers in charge of Government Departments.

^3. Post-primary schools in Northern Ireland are funded on the basis of a common funding formula whereby each school’s financial budget share is largely determined by the number and age of the pupils enrolled. The income generated by the enrollment numbers is based on the use of Age Weighted Pupil Units (AWPU) employed in the formula. Thus, the greater the number of students in a school the larger the funding share obtained from the DENI. More details can be accessed at www.deni.gov.uk/2012-13_common_funding_scheme.pdf

^4. Orthogonality is a desirable and typical feature of the design of stated preference experiments. It ensures that any two levels of different attributes are uncorrelated and was viewed as essential to determine that the attributes presented varied independently of each other with minimal levels of correlation. This enables separation of the likely impacts of each attribute on the options chosen by respondents.

^5. A simple Binary Logit Model was used to estimate the coefficients. Binary Logit Models are typically used when predicting an event which has two possible outcomes, in this case School X “versus” School Y.

^6. The statistical significance of the parameters was considered typically at the 95% confidence limit. However, variables with statistically insignificant parameters at this confidence level are reported in the various models in order to facilitate comparison between schools and provide insight into the behavioral process of parents.

^7. The adjusted rho-square (ρ²) statistic is a measure of the goodness-of-fit for each of the models, that is, the models’ ability to reproduce the choices made by a sample of users. Observations equals the product of number of completed surveys and number of scenarios specified in the Stated Preference experiment.

^8. Grammar schools are generally composed of pupils of the same religion who achieved Grades C1 or above in their 11+ transfer test.

^9. Secondary schools are generally composed of pupils of the same religion who did not enter the 11+ transfer test or failed to achieve a higher grade (A-C1).

^10. Integrated schools are composed of an equal religious mix of pupils and offer a secondary school curriculum (although Lagan College also offers a Grammar School stream).

11. The simple equation below was used to calculate the journey time premiums parents were willing to let their child experience in order to attend a school fulfilling their academic aspirations.