Achievement Gaps by Parental Income and Education

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Sesion 4
  In Roundtable Session: Family Engagement: Exploring the Possibilities of Family Engagement in Complex and Contentious Contexts

Abstract

Socioeconomic achievement gaps measure the disparity in test scores between students from high and low socioeconomic backgrounds. However, educational data are often limited, leading researchers to arrive at different conclusions about levels and trends depending on gap measure and estimation method. In this paper we disentangle the importance of each by using register data from Norway with precise measures of income and education. We show that results crucially depend on the gap measure as income and parental education are not interchangeable measures of socioeconomic background. Achievement gaps by parental income are large and have increased over the 11 year time period we study, whereas achievement gaps by education are even larger, but have remained stable.

Authors

• Astrid Marie Jorde Sandsør, University of Oslo

• Henrik Zachrisson, University of Oslo

• Lynn Koroly, RAND Corporation