Social class segregation in upper-secondary school choice in Canada

Abstract

The aim of this work is to analyze how the spoken language at home influences the parental decision on school choice in Canada. There is a vast literature on the factors affecting school choice, but very little research has been made on bilingual or multilingual countries. We take data from the 2012 PISA questionnaires to estimate the probability of choosing a determinate type of school, discriminating by instructional language and financing. The results show clearly that the impact of bilingualism dilutes otherwise very important socio-economic variables.