Commuting patterns of preschool children in metropolitan Stockholm

Abstract

This full population study of travel-to-preschool patterns of the youngest children (< 6 years old) in metropolitan Stockholm analyses how school markets, even at an early stage, reproduce inequalities related to social and geographical distances. Our findings show that families with foreign backgrounds tend to convert educational capital into social capital by sending their children to preschools in more socio-economically favourable neighbourhoods. Furthermore, we detect avoidance behaviour among the majority population in ethnically mixed neighbourhoods, which indicate that some native families are inclined to avoid preschools with high shares of non-native peers.