Impact of Conflict on Student Achievement: A Four-Year Comparative Study Prior and Post–Peace Agreement Treatment in Colombia

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research in Progress Roundtable Session Three
  In Roundtable Session: Educational Inequality: Intraracial and Intersectional Analyses of Academic Achievement Disparities (Table 5)

Abstract

"Some research has established that exposure to repeated acts of violence can cause delays in cognitive development, which in turn generates lower school performance (Buvinic, Das Gupta and Shemyakina, 2013; Margolin and Gordis, 2000). The literature indicates that studying in an environment with a high incidence of violence could decrease the chances of passing state educational exams (Brück, Di Maio and Miaari, 2014).
This study seeks to estimate the effect of the Colombian armed conflict on student educational achievement studying in conflict areas before and after the peace agreement, during the period from 2014 and 2019 using the national standardized tests results (called Saber 11) at the end of the high school, which is grade 11 in the educational system in Colombia. The performance level information came from the literacy and numeracy results data achieved by students in the Saber 11th tests of 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018. The 2016 Saber 11 results are not analyzed since the Colombian government signed the peace agreement at this year and the research investigates the effects before and after the peace treatment."

Author

• Walter Suarez, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author