Sources of inequality in Portugal’s educational achievement
News | 16 June 2022 Sources of inequality in Portugal’s educational achievement

Beatriz César has developed her Master’s thesis on the sources of inequality in Portugal’s educational achievement, concluding that the school peers’ family characteristics is the main observable determinant of the inequality in educational achievement, detecting some regional differences as well.

Using PISA data, this work project examines the contribution of family characteristics and school inputs to the inequality in Portuguese students’ academic achievement and assesses how this contribution has evolved in the last two decades.

The final dataset contains a representative sample of 4,405 students in 2000, 6,128 students in 2009 and 5,443 students in 2018. In 2000, this sample counts with 145 schools, with an increase in this number to 199 schools in 2009 and 233 schools in 2018.

The results suggest that, consistently throughout the years, the family characteristics of the peers in the school is the main observable determinant of educational inequality School inputs play a smaller role in explaining the variance in test scores. There is, however, a decrease in the part of the variance in test scores that is explained by these two factors. Some heterogeneity effects are observed between regions. These results are in line with those obtained by Pedro Carneiro 15 years ago (available here): the family of the peers in the school is still the main observable determinant of educational achievement.

Know more here: Thesis

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