Erlend Ingridsønn Nordrum

• Rogne, Adrian Farner; Borgen, Solveig Topstad & Nordrum, Erlend Ingridsønn (2025). School Segregation and Native Flight: Evidence from School Catchment Area Borders. European Societies. ISSN 1461-6696. 27(3), p. 433–467. doi: 10.1162/euso_a_00021. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Although extensively theorized, determining the mechanisms that produce ethnic or racial segregation in schools and neighborhoods has proven difficult. We investigate one potential mechanism behind ethnic segregation; native flight from schools. In contexts where school enrollment is determined primarily by geographic proximity to schools, Native or White parents with a preference for schools with low minority concentrations may choose to move away from schools with higher minority concentrations among students, contributing to both residential and school segregation. Using detailed, population-wide, geo-coded register data on families and school catchment areas for elementary schools in Oslo, Norway, we investigate whether native parents move away from schools with higher shares of students with non-Western immigrant backgrounds. We first show that native origin families systematically move away from schools with high shares of students with non-Western immigrant backgrounds. Employing a Geographic Regression Discontinuity design, exploiting the fact that catchment area borders sort neighboring children into different schools, our results indicate that such moves may be causally linked to local school characteristics, not just their neighborhoods. This may contribute to segregation in schools and neighborhoods. However, the results are ambiguous and sensitive to model specifications, and more research is needed to draw firm conclusions.

• Nordrum, Erlend Ingridsønn & Gracia, Pablo (2023). Impacts of broadband internet on adolescents’ academic outcomes: heterogeneous effects among lower secondary school students in Norway. Information, Communication & Society. ISSN 1369-118X. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2023.2295360. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The expansion of internet is likely to influence adolescents’ academic outcomes. Yet, how internet coverage impacts students’ educational performance remains poorly understood. To address this major knowledge gap, this study uses a quasi-experimental approach with Norwegian data to causally examine how the gradual introduction of home broadband internet across municipalities impacted the academic outcomes of lower-secondary school graduates (N = 103,796). Analyses apply sibling fixed-effects models with micro-level registry data from adolescents aged 15–16, and compare differences in effects by gender, social background, migrant status, and academic achievement levels. Findings show that the introduction of broadband internet across municipalities brought moderate grade improvements concentrated among boys in the subject areas of Mathematics, Arts and Crafts, Social Sciences, and Norwegian. The positive effect of broadband internet coverage on academic performance was three times larger for boys than for girls. For boys, broadband internet coverage led to strong grade improvements among the lower-achieving and socioeconomically disadvantaged, and to moderate grade benefits among those of Norwegian background, while boys from higher-achieving and socioeconomically privileged groups reduced their grades moderately. By contrast, for girls, broadband internet coverage worsened substantially the academic performance of those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, whereas girls of migrant background obtained higher grades with this expansion of internet. The study findings reveal how the growth of internet coverage impacts adolescent educational performance, but differently across groups, showing a complex intersection across gender, social background, migrant status, and academic achievement levels.

• Nordrum, Erlend Ingridsønn (2023). The Technologically Sustained Digital Divide. In Sætra, Henrik Skaug (Eds.), Technology and Sustainable Development: The Promise and Pitfalls of Techno-Solutionism. Routledge. ISSN 9781032350561. p. 97–108. doi: 10.1201/9781003325086-8. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA

• Rogne, Adrian Farner; Borgen, Solveig Topstad & Nordrum, Erlend Ingridsønn (2024). School Segregation and Native Flight. Evidence from School Catchment Area Borders. SocArXiv. doi: 10.31235/osf.io/xykdg. Full text in Research Archive
• Nordrum, Erlend (2018). Measuring homophily in the choice of upper secondary school. Full text in Research Archive

View all works in NVA