National Education Performance and Early Childhood Social Conditions

• In Event: 3503 - Educational Inequality and Segregation: New Findings

Abstract

Researchers continue to accrue important findings concerning cross-national education performance in primary and secondary school through large-scale assessments like Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). However, the direct comparison of factors related to early childhood learning, prior to formal schooling, remains a challenge. Simply put, the data for a broad range of countries is not yet available, especially at the individual-student level. Meanwhile, the overwhelming consensus across social science disciplines is that the importance of these early years cannot be overstated. We suggest that one way to move forward with available international data is to examine the relationship between later PISA scores and measures of national social conditions in place when the PISA cohort was born. In the present study, we combine educational outcomes from the most recent PISA 2015 assessment with secondary data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) regarding social conditions and policies that were measured during the earliest and most formative years of the PISA 2015 cohort. In our sample of 30 affluent OECD nations, we find that more highly educated societies, those with lower child poverty rates, and those where the state plays a stronger role in mitigating insecurity regarding job loss, produce more desirable educational outcomes. As a point of reference, we also show that these social conditions carry a greater magnitude of effect when compared to measures of school-level resources. We discuss the implications of these findings for educational and social policy.

Author

• Joseph Merry, Furman University