Socio-economic status (SES) is an important construct in examining differences in student, school, community, and national outcomes. Relationships between SES and outcomes have been found to apply in high- as well as low- and middle-income countries, with some conflicting evidence regarding the relative importance of individual- and group-level SES on outcomes. Such differences, however, may be partly due to inappropriateness of widely-used measures of SES in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in international assessments. This symposium presents results of a body of work focusing on improving the measurement of SES – with a particular focus on producing new measures that are appropriate across multiple contexts and in international assessment.

This symposium draws on an international body of work with the specific focus of improving the monitoring of education and improving the capacity of individual countries to report education outcomes, for example, against the Sustainable Development Goals. This symposium presents the findings of an international literature review, and two quantitative studies exploring the quality of the measurement of SES in international assessments and proposing an improved approach to measuring SES in diverse contexts.

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