Changes in Socioeconomic Achievement Gaps in International Comparison, 1964-2011

• In Event: 079 - Regular Session. Sociology of Education: Comparative and Historical Approaches

Abstract

Recent evidence from the US shows that the gap in academic achievement between students from high-income and low-income families has grown substantially over the past 40 years (Reardon 2011). This study examines whether these increasing socioeconomic achievement gaps are part of a worldwide trend. It is the first to compare SES achievement gaps over the entire history of large-scale cross-national assessments, dating back to the First International Mathematics Study (FIMS) in 1964. The study combines 26 datasets across 105 countries and 47 years and represents about 4.3 million students. Three measures of family socioeconomic status are available in most of the datasets: parents’ education, parents’ occupation, and the number of books in the home. Results indicate that on average worldwide, SES achievement gaps have increased dramatically for all three measures of SES. Among OECD countries, achievement gaps based on parents’ education have increased by about 25%, gaps based on parents’ occupation have increased by about 35%, and gaps based on books in the home have increased by about 70%. In less developed countries, the increases are even greater. In multivariate models, it appears to be those countries that have expanded their tertiary education the least and/or where SES segregation between schools has increased the most that have seen the largest increases in SES achievement gaps.

Author

• Anna Katyn Chmielewski, Michigan State University