The paper analyse the impact of a desegregation educational policy on the patterns of school segregation in Rio de Janeiro public schools. This particular policy, called “lottery system”, started in 2010 and has been improved, with a constant increase in the proportion of families joining the new allocation system. In addition to the “lottery system”, Rio de Janeiro has an open enrolment system that combines two distinct procedures. On the one hand, parents have purported freedom of choice. There are no restrictions for allocating pupils regarding families’ residence and the policy of free public transport for pupils from public schools, in theory, allows greater mobility to search for different schools. On the other hand, schools’ principals have some control over their intake, especially in the case of oversubscription (Bartholo, 2013).

Previous studies in Rio de Janeiro public municipal schools suggested parental competition for the most prestigious schools and the pupil selection based on specific criteria by the school staff. The phenomenon was initially characterized as “Hidden-Quasi-Market” (Costa; Koslinski, 2011; 2012) or a “market ecology” (Yair, 1996) and is based on the assumption that: a) school intakes are correlated to school reputation and attainment levels; b) the potential to select pupils is also correlated to school reputation/demand. One of the main concerns from previous studies was related to the potential pupil selection.

The new lottery system has the potential to limit the power of school principals or administrative staff to select pupils based on specific characteristics. The new allocation system allows parents to choose up to five schools, in a hierarchical list. The preferences are uploaded to software for random allocation based on initial parental choice. The main difference here is that schools with oversubscription would not have any decision power over which family would get the vacancy. The main research question is: what is the impact of the lottery system on patterns of school segregation in Rio de Janeiro public schools?

Evidence from different educational systems suggests that clustering pupils with similar characteristics can influence how they are treated at school, the quality of teaching, aspiration to advanced education subsequent to the compulsory level, and an increasing association between academic achievement and socio-economic status. (Haarth et al., 2005; EGGRES, 2005; Rosenthal; Jacobson, 1968). Focusing disadvantage into areas or particular schools may also polarise information about future opportunities and remove role models, so influencing long-term outcomes such as levels of aspiration and endangers students’ sense of belonging in society (Gorard; See, 2013). Any attempt to overcome educational disadvantage should not ignore the role of school intakes.

Evidence from many different countries suggests that school segregation is a universal phenomenon and has to be considered as a consequence of residential segregation, educational policies and parental choice, which are presumed to correlate with social, economic and cultural isolation (Harris, 2011). The paper focus only on the role of one educational policy on school segregation and, therefore, a big part of the variation in the segregation levelswill not be explained by this model.

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