School choice in the Basque Country: Public, government-dependent and private schools with different languages of instruction

This paper analyzes the determinants of parental decisions when choosing schools for their children in the Basque Country, Spain. This choice is studied both in terms of private versus public schooling and also the main language of instruction, using data from PISA 2012 questionnaires. We estimate the probability of a family choosing a certain type of school using a multinomial logit. The main results indicate that the most significant influence on the decision of school type and language model (Basque, Spanish, or Mixed) comes from the amount of wealth in the family, as well as the language spoken at home. Moreover, the option of having Basque as the sole language of instruction mitigates the effect on class stratification. (c) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.