Session Information
SES B 08, Paper Session
Paper Session
Contribution
Is top performance in science determined by social background? Does Flanders, the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, succeed to surmount the barriers of socio-economic disadvantaged background? International PISA data indicates that top performers tend to come from an advantaged socio-economic background in virtually every country. Even when the social background between top performers and strong performers (the second best performing group) is compared, a significant difference is found between those two groups: top performers generally come from a significantly higher socio-economic environment than strong performers.
The percentage of top performing students with a relatively disadvantaged background greatly varies from country to country. In Luxembourg, Portugal, Greece, and… more than 80% of the top performers come from more advantaged background. In contrast, countries like Japan, Finland and Austria manage to have more than a third of the top performers in science from a socio-economic background below the average of the country. These countries show that equity in learning outcomes is not unrealistic.
The aim of this study is to examine the relation between socio-economic background and top performance in Flanders. Is the majority of top performers advantaged by the environment they are coming from? Or does Flanders belong to the countries where a relatively large amount of students from disadvantaged background succeed to excel? The last is a big challenge in achieving social equity in learning outcomes.
From international PISA research we know that some countries more than other countries succeed to include students from disadvantaged background in the top performing class of students. But what is the influence of a tracked system? Does the impact of socio-economic background differs between tracks? As secondary education in Flanders is tracked, the Flemish results could be used to explore this research question. In the Flemish tracked system, the relation between socio-economic environment and top performance within a more homogeneous group, more specific within a track, is analyzed.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
OECD (2009), Top of the Class.High Performers in Science , OECD, Paris. OECD (2006), PISA 2006 Science Competencies for Tomorrow’s World - Volume 1: analysis, OECD, Paris. OECD (2009), PISA Data Analysis Manual, SPSS, second edition, OECD, Paris.
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