Based on governmental politics we realize lower financial investments in social housing programs in most German cities since 20 years. This development holds especially true for Berlin. Thus, we observe a growing segregation of city districts according to ethnic and socio-economic categories of the inhabitants, which goes along with European changes. This caused poor urban neighborhoods to emerge in which urban problems, such as unemployment, disintegration and poverty both clash and exacerbate. Therefore, city neighborhoods become more important for the living conditions of families and children.

Regarding families’ decisions of a special school for their children, two factors are important: Firstly, their social-economic status, and secondly, their neighborhood. Firstly, the economic and social situation of the family affects decisions, especially those considering the process of school choice for children who are at the primary school and move to the secondary school. Families with high economic status are more likely to send their children to grammar school than families with a lower economic position, who rather choose a lower school type. Secondly, the choice of a special school even depends on neighborhood characteristics. If, for example, too many families with migrant background live in the neighborhood, families with a high status tend to move to a neighborhood with a more favorable ethnic composition.

Thus, due to the socio-spatial fragmentation in Berlin, the influence of the neighborhood on the school decisions of parents for their children is assumedly growing as well, and thus, the social and ethnic segregation has fundamental consequences for the educational performance for the students. For example the contextual effect of the neighborhood on the development of competence is already substantiated (Maaz et al. 2010). And even the influences of the neighborhood on school choice decisions of parents have mainly been shown in the United States and England, so for example the relationship between the parents’ educational decisions and their places of living is explored under the premise of choosing non-neighborhood schools (Bifulco et al. 2009), making class related strategic decisions (Ball 2006; Reay 2007) and relating the appearance of the neighborhood to the quality of the school (Bell 2009). The school choice decision of the actively choosing population then leads to ethnic and social processes of segregation  of the neighborhood (Lankford et al. 2006), which then have negative influences on the performance level of those “left behind” (Kahlenberg 2001).

Therefore, the first specific research question posed is whether there are contextual effects of the neighborhood on the school choice decision of parents at the transition from primary to secondary school.

And secondly, what consequences do school choice decisions have for the composition of neighborhoods and schools in an urban setting?

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