"Admission Impossible? School choice in European cities"

The research project ‘Admission Impossible? School Choice in European Cities’, funded by the Research Council of Norway, examines school policy in 14 Western European cities and explores in depth issues relating to admission to, and segregation within, upper secondary schools in Norway.

Bilde av person som står ovenfor veivalg — Photo: Photo by the project

Affiliation

Duration

October 2021–September 2025

About the research project

Theme and objectives of the project

What motivates parents and pupils to choose different schools? How are social and ethnic inequalities reproduced in such choices, and how has the pupil composition at different schools evolved over time? And what about politicians? How do they attempt to influence school choice and pupil composition through various admissions schemes, local school catchment areas and similar measures? How much scope for action do politicians at municipal and county council level perceive they have in relation to such issues? What are the issues at the heart of political conflicts over admission schemes, and which organisations are attempting to influence school policy? And not least: what do pupils themselves think about the admission scheme? These are some of the research questions underpinning the project ‘Admission Impossible? School Choice in European Cities’.

The project aims to generate knowledge that can be useful for understanding the dilemmas and political conflicts that arise in school policy, and will further contribute to our understanding of the development of segregation in schools over time.

Methodology

The project consists of three integrated sub-projects: 1) School policy in 14 Western European cities, 2) Pupils’ experiences of and views on choosing upper secondary schools in Norwegian cities, and 3) Register-based analysis of segregation in upper secondary schools in Norway. Click on the menu below to read more about each individual project.

Sub-project 1

This sub-project is based on interviews with politicians, civil servants and representatives of interest groups within the education sector (such as teachers’, parents’ and private school organisations). Through case studies, we examine school policy in 14 Western European cities, in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France and England respectively. Here, we focus on how school choice is governed through admission schemes and school catchment areas, and what political conflicts arise from such issues. We aim to shed light on how politicians and bureaucrats balance the need to facilitate choice on the one hand, whilst seeking to limit social and ethnic inequalities in schools on the other. We are also interested in politicians’ self-perceived room for manoeuvre within the school sector at municipal and county council level, and how they perceive the collaboration between the political sphere and the school administration. In Norway, we have so far conducted 41 interviews in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Stavanger. The results have not yet been published, but will be posted on this website as soon as they are available.

Sub-project 2

This sub-project examines how pupils in Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim experience the process of choosing a secondary school, what factors are important to them in making this choice, and what views they hold on admissions systems and school policy. The project is based on various types of data:

We have conducted qualitative in-depth interviews with 48 pupils in Year 1 of upper secondary school (VG1) during the winter/spring of 2022/2023. The pupils attend schools with either relatively high or relatively low average marks. In the interviews, we asked, amongst other things, how they experienced the process of choosing a sixth-form college, what was important to them in their choice, what perceptions they have of the social environment at the various schools in the city, what sort of fellow pupils they would like to have, and furthermore what they think about the admissions system and school policy in their county.
We have conducted 12 focus group interviews with first-year upper secondary school pupils attending schools with either a relatively high or relatively low average mark. Here, we have, amongst other things, focused on the pupils’ views on the various schools in the city, i.e. what distinguishes the schools from one another and what characterises the different school environments. Furthermore, we asked to what extent the pupils have experienced pressure to achieve good marks, and what their thoughts are on the transition from lower secondary school to upper secondary school.
We conducted a survey amongst first-year upper secondary school pupils in Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim in the spring of 2023. The survey focuses on what was important to pupils when choosing a sixth-form college, which factors were decisive in their choice, to what extent the average marks at the various colleges were important to them, and, more generally, what pupils think about the admissions system and school policy issues. In Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim, we collaborated with the county administration to reach the pupils, whilst in Oslo the survey was distributed through direct contact with the upper secondary schools. We obtained the best data set in Bergen, where 13 out of 14 upper secondary schools chose to take part in the survey. In Bergen, 1,715 pupils completed the survey, giving a response rate of 47 per cent. In Stavanger, 684 pupils completed the survey (response rate 28 per cent). In Trondheim, 718 pupils completed the survey (response rate 28 per cent). In Oslo, 872 pupils completed the survey (response rate 13 per cent). See our documentation report for further information.

The results of the survey carried out in Bergen have been published in a key figures report (external link). For the other cities, we will not be publishing descriptive results from the survey because the data set is not representative of all pupils in VG1. Vocational pupils, in particular, are significantly under-represented in the data from Oslo, Stavanger and Trondheim. Nevertheless, the data is useful for future quantitative analyses, such as analyses of the school environments at the schools that took part in the survey.

Sub-project 3

In sub-project 3, we aim to investigate the effects of different types of admission schemes in upper secondary schools. The research questions to be examined cover three main areas:

Academic performance, where the focus is on whether different types of admission schemes can lead to a greater concentration of high- and low-achieving pupils at different schools.
Ethnic segregation, where the aim is to identify the effects of changes to admission requirements for upper secondary schools in major Norwegian cities by developing and using indices of immigrant density at school level.
Segregation based on socio-economic background, where the study examines whether admission schemes may have potentially influenced the concentration of family resources such as income/wealth and parental education in upper secondary education.

In sub-project 3, the data set we are working with consists of longitudinal administrative data provided by Statistics Norway (SSB). This data set contains individual information on demographics, health, social benefits, employment, income and wealth, as well as detailed information on individual educational pathways and school performance. The data also allows individuals to be linked to their families, schools and areas of residence, enabling the identification of contextual factors and conditions.

Researchers

The four-year project (2021–2025) is affiliated with the University of Bergen. The project is led by Dr Susanne Wiborg (UCL London) and Prof. Thomas Lorentzen (University of Bergen). The research team also comprises Professor Katharina Sass (University of Bergen) and Dr Karin Edmark (Stockholm University), as well as PhD student Anders Tonning Rong (University of Bergen) and research assistant Sarah Christin Aga (University of Bergen).

Bilde av de fire forskerne tilknyttet gruppen — Photo: Privat

Here you can read more about the project members.

Selected Articles

Privilege talking? Norwegian elite students’ justifications of grade competition and segregation (external link) (2026) by Katharina Sass and Sarah Christin Aga

This article examines how students at academic elite upper-secondary schools in Norway make sense of inequality, privilege, and school admission policy. Based on qualitative interviews with students at four elite schools, the analysis shows that students display awareness of social inequality, privilege by birth, and unequal opportunities. However, this awareness rarely translates into sustained critique of the grade-based admission system. Instead, students reconcile egalitarian ideals with support for competitive selection by emphasizing individual effort, motivation, and merit. They construct an image of the typical elite student as hardworking, capable, creative, and deserving. Drawing on elite-sociological approaches to the justification of privilege, the article demonstrates how, in a comparatively egalitarian culture marked by increasing inequality, elite students combine elements of social-democratic thinking with a neoliberal understanding of meritocracy.

Upper Secondary Education Across Two Decades: Student Composition and Segregation Based on Country of Origin in Norway’s Four Largest Cities (external link) (2025) by Thomas Lorentzen, Katharina Sass and Karin Edmark.

In this article, the development of segregation based on country background in upper secondary schools in Oslo, Bergen, Stavanger, and Trondheim over the last two decades is analyzed. Analyses based on registry data reveal increasing segregation in both schools and neighborhoods in all four cities, with Oslo standing out with a particularly high degree of segregation. The analyses do not provide grounds for a definitive conclusion on whether it is the schools’ admission models or residential segregation that are the main explanations behind the development in the different cities. However, the analyses suggest that residential segregation likely plays a significant role in Oslo. Given the strong increase in residential segregation in Oslo, it is reasonable to conclude that admission models that emphasize residence will not be able to reduce ethnic segregation in upper secondary schools in Oslo, as long as the residential patterns remain as they are. For the other three cities, with far less residential segregation, a stronger emphasis on residence could be a more effective means to counteract further school segregation.

Competitive boys, equality-oriented girls? Evidence on a gender gap in education policy-related opinions among Norwegian youth (external link) (2025) by Katharina Sass and Karin Edmark.

In Norway, upper-secondary school admissions in cities are primarily based on grades, favouring students with top grades for the most popular schools. This study examines student support for this grade-based system, exploring gender differences and the influence of family affluence and student grades on attitudes. The findings reveal that boys are significantly more likely to support grade-based admissions, even after accounting for various background factors. Conversely, girls are more likely to favour a system where admission chances are equal regardless of grades. Boys generally have lower grades than girls, suggesting that these preferences are not solely driven by self-interest. The gender gap in support is substantial across the grade spectrum but slightly narrows among top-grade students and those from affluent families, indicating that class and gender might interact. These results align with broader research on gender differences in political attitudes among youth, highlighting the role of childhood socialization.

Birds of a Feather: Exploring Peer Influence and Academic Progress in Norwegian Secondary Schools (external link) (2025) by Thomas Lorentzen.

The author examines how peer influence acts as a catalyst for individual academic growth or decline, focusing on grade-rank changes between lower secondary and upper secondary education. The aim is to identify school-level factors that either promote or hinder learning, emphasizing the role of peer ability and country background segregation. Using population-based register data from Norway and using fixed-effects and multilevel random-effects models, the analysis reveals that girls tend to improve more than boys in the theoretical subjects found within academic tracks, while boys excel in practical subjects within vocational tracks. Although country-based segregation is less critical than peer ability, some negative effects of segregation are evident, particularly for non-Western students and subjects requiring language proficiency. Interestingly, students show significant grade-rank improvement in schools with lower peer ability levels. These findings suggest that in terms of grade improvement, attending schools with lower ability peers can be beneficial, particularly for girls.