Abstract
This chapter reviews international comparative studies on the determinants of socioeconomic inequality in student performance. We were interested in studies of explanatory variables that are amenable to educational policy interventions. To identify such publications, we developed a comprehensive search strategy and conducted an electronic search based on six databases. We also manually searched two existing hand-picked reviews. After duplicates were removed, the search resulted in 814 references, of which a total of 35 studies met the eligibility criteria. The included studies investigated diverse topics such as learning environments inside and outside of school, educational expenditure, teacher education, autonomy, accountability, differentiation, and competition from private schools. Most studies are descriptive in nature and their findings are sometimes ambiguous. Despite these limitations, we tentatively conclude that the opportunity of choice reinforces inequality. Measures that target social selection can be effective.
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Notes
- 1.
The following search function for Web of Science: TS = (“socioeconomic status” OR “socio-economic status” OR “social class” OR “social status” OR “income or disadvantaged or poverty” OR “socioeconomic background” OR “socio-economic background” OR “social background” OR “social inequality” OR “socioeconomic inequality” OR “socio-economic inequality”) AND TS = (achievement OR literacy OR performance) AND TS = (“international studies” OR “comparative analysis” OR “comparative education” OR “international assessment” OR cived OR fims OR firs OR fiss OR iccs OR icils OR pirls OR pisa OR sims OR sirs OR siss OR timss OR “civic education study” OR “first international mathematics study” OR “first international reading study” OR “first international science study” OR “international civic and citizenship education study” OR “international computer and information literacy study” OR “pilot twelve-country study” OR “programme for international student assessment” OR “progress in international reading literacy study” OR “reading literacy study” OR “second international mathematics study” OR “second international reading study” OR “second international science study” OR “six subject survey” OR “third international mathematics and science study” OR “trends international mathematics and science study” OR “written composition study”) along with the limiters LANGUAGE: (English) and DOCUMENT TYPES: (Article). The search function and limiters were adapted to used for the other databases. EBSCOhsost were used to search EconLit, ERIC, PsychINFO, and SocINDEX. The electronic search was conducted on February 2, 2018.
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Funding Note
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 765400 and was supported by Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) [grant number 2015-01080].
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Strietholt, R. et al. (2019). The Impact of Education Policies on Socioeconomic Inequality in Student Achievement: A Review of Comparative Studies. In: Volante, L., Schnepf, S., Jerrim, J., Klinger, D. (eds) Socioeconomic Inequality and Student Outcomes. Education Policy & Social Inequality, vol 4. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9863-6_2
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