In Good Company: Exploring Social Forces, School Type and Student Outcomes.

Policies for remedying pervasive educational inequalities focus almost exclusively on the provision of 'choice' as a remedy and tend to overlook the potential for social factors like peer culture and school climate in affecting student outcomes. This study uses the Education Longitudinal Survey (ELS) to understand the role of peer culture and school climate in educational outcomes across different types of schools by addressing three research questions. First, how do students' aspirations and achievement differ depending on their school setting, especially in public schools of choice? Secondly, what is the relationship between peers or climate and students' aspirations and achievement? And finally, are the effects of students' peers and school climate enhanced in specialized school settings, especially public schools of choice? We find that a positive peer and school climate are related to higher aspirations and test scores. We also find that student outcomes are generally better in specialized school settings. However, the ability of a supposedly more positive social climate in specialized schools to confer additional benefits to students appears to be limited to aspirations, as we find no additional benefit to these school types in terms of test scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]