School gentrification: if Barcelona changes, do classrooms change?

BarcelonaRents with soaring prices, traditional businesses replaced by hipster style ones and, now, transformed schools. Gentrification is a reality affecting the city of Barcelona and altering its urban space, and educational centers are not left out of this urban change. This is indicated by a new study promoted by researchers from the University of Barcelona (UB), the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and the Metròpoli Institute, which warns that gentrification processes are also redefining the city's educational communities.

The article, developed within the GENTRED project, analyzes for the first time and systematically the phenomenon of "school gentrification" in Barcelona: a newly coined concept that defines the process in which families with high cultural and economic capital – often migrated from high-income countries, but also Catalans or from Spain – enter schools that until then had only enrolled students from popular classes.

The study proposes a central idea, which is that urban and educational inequalities feed each other, and warns of a need: public policies are needed that connect urbanism and educational equity. Based on the analysis of neighborhoods and educational centers in Barcelona, the research identifies that school gentrification – little explored outside the Anglo-Saxon sphere – may be impacting the Catalan capital. "Barcelona represents a particularly unique case," points out Marcel Pagès, a researcher at the University of Barcelona and co-author of the study. For some years now, the city has been exposed to intense processes of touristification, transnational migration – 31.3% of the population living in the city was born abroad – and housing market transformations.

In this sense, the study points out that, just as when new populations with high income levels arrive in traditionally impoverished neighborhoods the urban environment can improve aesthetically and there can be displacement processes, in the school dimension something similar ends up happening. Pagès explains that potential effects are observed that can be contradictory: while this change brings in non-vulnerable student profiles and improves the diversity of schools – some historically stigmatized schools improve their reputation and are no longer perceived as ghettos –, at the same time it can cause displacement or loss of centrality for the most vulnerable families within the center. The study emphasizes that this phenomenon does not necessarily imply the physical expulsion of other families, but it does include profound transformations in the center's culture, participation dynamics, and the school's social reputation.

"Where there are students like them"

Researchers deny that all schools in a gentrified neighborhood change in the same way and, to understand how school gentrification develops in Barcelona, GENTRED identifies several mechanisms that encourage it. One of these is the competition dynamic of schools. "Centers see that, all of a sudden, they can reverse their dynamic and attract a different population profile," highlights Pagès. The expert says that, even if there is no intention of exclusion, the center's reaction is to want to attract the new profile of families through pedagogical practices that adjust to their preferences.

At the same time, the families in question tend to look for the neighborhood school that convinces them the most. "It's the idea of taking the child to the neighborhood school, but not just any school, but one where there are also students like him," specifies Pagès, who explains that this is what causes not all schools in a gentrified area to be gentrified. Often it is daily and seemingly individual decisions – choosing a school recommended by other families, valuing a certain pedagogical project, or avoiding centers perceived as “complex” – that, when combined or accumulated over time, end up reinforcing new forms of segregation. Furthermore, some families may stop feeling represented within the educational community.

With the aim of not reinforcing educational and territorial inequalities, the study insists on not addressing school gentrification in isolation, but rather on developing public policies to ensure equity. "One of the issues that needs to be addressed are those related to school planning, that is, looking at how supply and oversupply are regulated based on geographical and urban changes," points out Pagès. Among the educational recommendations proposed, the need to review zoning systems and reinforce proximity criteria to favor a more balanced distribution of students also stands out. In addition, it is proposed to promote policies that foster cohesion within educational centers and encourage the participation of the entire educational community from an inclusive and equitable perspective. Finally, it is proposed to develop pedagogical strategies that help improve coexistence, cohesion, and integration among students, going beyond simple coexistence within the school.