Studying together, living apart: Emerging geographies of school attendance in post-apartheid Cape Town

Desegregation of South African schools is creating new geographies of education. Parental choice of school in the context of continuing spatial inequalities of educational provision encourages considerable movement of pupils from outside traditional catchment areas, as parents send children to distant schools formerly intended for members of other racial groups. To explore the socio-economic context of such choices, and the costs of making them, this article uses survey data from ten secondary schools with differing apartheid histories, in different socio-economic neighbourhoods, and with differing racial compositions. The findings reveal both the progress made since the end of apartheid and the limitations of change. Pupils travelling to distant schools in white areas appear to be coping well with the potential pressures, but remain a small, largely middle-class minority of black and coloured children, while friendships still appear to be made mainly within rather than across racial groups. Genuine educational choice and class mobility will depend on more fundamental reduction of educational inequality.