Friday, December 12, 2014

Mapping School Segregation


Sixty years after the 'Brown vs Board of Education' Supreme Court ruling that state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students was unconstitutional many schools in the United States remain, to all intents and purposes, segregated by race.

Diversity in New York City's Schools is a Google Map visualizing the largest racial group in each New York school. Each school is represented by a dot, colored to reveal the largest racial group within that school. If you select a school's marker on the map you can view a breakdown of that school's racial make-up.


The Miami Herald's report into The Changing Demographics of Miami-Dade Schools includes a revealing interactive map, which allows readers to explore the demographic of 460 Miami-Dade schools.

The map uses colored map markers to highlight schools on the map where 85% or more of the students are black or Hispanic. You can select individual schools on the map to view the complete demographic make-up of the student body, with percentages for the number of black, white, Hispanic and 'other' students.


The sectarian divide in Northern Ireland has resulted in a large proportion of people living in areas where the population are either predominantly Protestant or predominantly Roman Catholic. To overcome this religious 'apartheid' and to ensure that the children of both religions are not segregated Northern Ireland needs inclusive schools, schools where pupils are able to mix and learn alongside children of other religions.

Unfortunately Northern Ireland's schools are as segregated as the rest of Northern Ireland society. According to The Detail "almost half of Northern Ireland’s schoolchildren are being taught in schools where 95% or more of the pupils are of the same religion".

The Detail has used data from the Department of Education to map the religious segregation in Northern Ireland's schools. The Detail's Segregated Schools map reveals the percentage of Roman Catholic and Protestant pupils in each of Northern Ireland's schools.

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