A Comparison of Educational Achievements and Equal Opportunities in European Educational Systems

Author(s):

Heinz LeitgöbJohann Bacher

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

11. Educational Effectiveness and Quality Assurance

Format:

Paper

Session Information

11 SES 03 B, Equal Opportunities, Rural and Gender Education

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-28

14:00-15:30

Room:

HG, HS 47

Chair:

Irina Maslo

Contribution

Based on the ongoing heated debate concerning the future orientation of the Austrian educational system, our paper focuses on the influences of central system factors on the educational achievements and equal opportunities of students reaching the end of compulsory schooling. Using the PISA dataset from 2006, the analysis compares 16 European countries with a wide variety of pre-tertiary educational systems, ranging from the highly differentiated systems in Austria and Germany to the comprehensive systems in Scandinavian countries. The system factors which are of interest for the analysis are the age at which the first educational selection takes place, the educational participation of four-year-olds (proportion of children attending an ISCED 0 institution), the extent of the autonomy schools are granted and the proportion of academically trained teaching staff (ISCED 5A qualification). Furthermore, the mean test scores of mathematics and reading competences as well as the proportions of students belonging to the top flights as well as to risk groups represent the four educational performance indicators used in the analysis. Besides the social background of the students (indicated by the highest occupational status of their parents) as typical vertical dimension, the horizontal dimensions of migration status and sex complement the three analyzed social inequality characteristics to get a comprehensive insight into educational inequalities. The main research question is, whether the four system factors under investigation can significantly contribute to reduce educational inequalities and thus lead to an increase in equal opportunies of students. In summary, the results suggest that a combination of relevant educational system factors (a late first age of educational selection, a high level of school autonomy, etc.) is necessary to achieve sustained equal opportunities for students as well as a high level of educational performance. For a more detailed description of the research results please look at the box "Conclusions, ..." below.

Method

The equal opportunities are methodologically recorded by correlations (r, tau-b) between the three social inequality characteristics and the four educational performance indicators . Thus, the number of equal opportunities indicators equals twelve, with (high) correlations indicating the existence of continuing educational inequalities in the respective countries. To finally determine the effects of the educational system factors on equal opportunities, again the calculation of correlations (r, tau-b) proves to be the appropriate analysis method. Consequently, twelve parametric and twelve non-parametric correlation coefficients can be obtained for every system factor. As a consequence of the small number of cases (16), the analysis is restricted to bivariate calculations. Further, the additional non-parametric coefficients should control for possible "biased" results of the parametric coefficients as a consequence of "outliers" (countries with extremely high or low values).

Expected Outcomes

The investigated system factors have the following effects on educational performance and on equal opportunities: (1) In accordance with former studies, a later first age of educational selection leads to a significant reduction in educational inequalities and facilitates the integration of children with a migrant background. However, a late selection is also associated with a decrease in top performances and with a marginally lower mean performance in mathematics. (2) An unexpected effect can be reported for kindergarten attendance. The higher the rate of children participating in ISCED 0 institutions is, the stronger are the inequalities caused by migration. This effect can be explained by welfare regimes. (3) The educational performance positively correlates with the level of school autonomy, while more school autonomy does not lead to an increase in educational inequalities though. (4) No effects could be determined regarding the proportion of academically trained teaching staff.

References

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Author Information

Heinz Leitgöb

University of Linz

Department for Empirical Social Research

Linz

Johann Bacher

University of Linz, Austria

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