This paper presents a classification system that assigns each of the 85,131 public elementary and secondary schools in the United States to one of seven locale settings. The seven mutually exclusive locale designations are: (1) large city; (2) mid-size city; (3) urban fringe of large city; (4) urban fringe of mid-size city; (5) large town; (6)…

Using the 1980 census's independent measures of race, Spanish origin, nativity, and ancestry, this paper describes racial differentiation and segregation in 21 metropolitan areas, comparing it with ethnic group segregation, and to other demographic and housing characteristics. Special attention is given to the interplay of race and poverty.…

This paper examines the literature in the growing field of education and inequality that is concerned with how individuals sort, and the consequences of this knowledge for the accumulation of human capital, equity, efficiency, and welfare. It argues that how individuals sort across neighborhoods, schools, and households (spouses) can have…