The present report describes the changes in migrant-native exposure within lower secondary
education in Denmark from 1985 to 2019. On a backdrop of Gordon Allport’s contact theory
and the assumption that intergroup contact affects long-term social integration on a societal
level, the analysis is guided by Peter M. Blau’s macrosociological theory. It is shown that while
overall intergroup exposure in secondary school is increasing in pace with immigrant inflows,
we see the contours of structural sorting mechanisms. Over time, it is increasingly migrant
and native children of low socio-economic status experiencing increasing intergroup exposure
rates on a group-level. While migrant and native children of high(er) socio-economic status
increasingly, on a group-level, are attending schools in which their ingroup has the ‘numeric
advantage.’ On a municipal-level, the absolute size of the immigrant group is found to be the
best determinant in explaining processes of migrant-native separation between schools in the
school landscape.