Evidence from 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; Haarh, 2005). The paper analyses the unintentional impact of two educational policies on the levels of school segregation in public schools in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Segregation here is referred to as an uneven distribution of pupils with similar characteristic across a school system. The first policy considered here occurs in many educational systems in Latin America and other developing countries. It is known as “schools shifts”, a mandatory distribution of pupils across the morning, afternoon or night “shifts”. The different “shifts” at the same school building are a reality mainly due to high demand for schooling associated with a lack of appropriate infrastructure (school buildings) to meet the entire demand. Everything, besides the building and the principal, can change when comparing the “school shifts”: pupils, teachers, staff, even working materials, can vary from one “shift” to another. Since there is no specific legislation or clear criteria for the distribution of pupils across “school shifts”, a random allocation of pupils would be expected. Does it really happen? The second policy is called “Special Class” and it tracks pupils with poor academic performance over the years and separates them into different schools or “school shifts” in an attempt to implement focused policies as ameliorative packages.
In the case of Rio de Janeiro, despite the fact that policy makers did not implement formal tracking or school choice policies, previous research has shown high parental demand for the most prestigious schools and also different strategies and criteria by members of the educational bureaucracy in order to select pupils. This singular scenario, that combines purported freedom of choice for parents with schools’ control over their intake, has received the name of “Hidden-Quasi-Markets” (Bruel; Bartholo, 2012; Costa; Koslinski, 2011).

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