The Measurement of Educational Inequality : Achievement and Opportunity

Ferreira, Francisco H.G. ; Gignoux, Jé ; ré ; mie

Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank

关键词: achievement;    achievement tests;    achievements;    educational achievement;    educational outcomes;   

DOI  :  10.1093/wber/lht004

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Two related measures of educational inequality are proposed: one for educationalachievement and another for educational opportunity. The former is the simple variance(or standard deviation) of test scores. Its selection is informed by considerationof two measurement issues that have typically been overlooked in the literature: theimplications of the standardization of test scores for inequality indices, and the possiblesample selection biases arising from the Program of International StudentAssessment (PISA) sampling frame. The measure of inequality of educational opportunity is given by the share of the variance in test scores that is explained by predetermined circumstances. Both measures are computed for the 57 countries in which PISA surveys were conducted in 2006. Inequality of opportunity accounts for up to 35 percent of all disparities in educational achievement. It is greater in (most of) continental Europe and Latin America than in Asia, Scandinavia, and North America. It isuncorrelated with average educational achievement and only weakly negatively correlated with per capita gross domestic product. It correlates negatively with the share of spending in primary schooling, and positively with tracking in secondary schools.