IIEP Strategic Seminars

Measuring the opportunity divide: schools and educational inequality

Presented on Wednesday, 22 October 2008
by Albert Motivans and Yanhong Zhang, UNESCO Institute for Statistics

The need to understand the scope and nature of inequalities in the distribution of educational opportunity and the range of policy choices for minimising these differences has risen on the global policy agenda. The divides in learning opportunities are shaped by a complex range of factors and comparative research has focused on how family background and school quality influence learning achievement.

In focusing on the role of schools, this Strategic Seminar presents new approaches for measuring the performance of education systems in providing learning opportunities to all children and youth. Based on data from cross-national assessments of student achievement and school surveys in both more and less developed countries, it examines the policy implications of the relationship between socioeconomic and educational disparities, inequalities that are attributable to differences between schools and those between students within schools, and how schools function relative to socioeconomic differences in student intake.

Related links:

• A View Inside Primary Schools
  http://www.uis.unesco.org/ev_en.php?ID=7333_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC
• Learning Divides: Ten Policy Questions about the Performance and Equity of Schools and Schooling Systems
  http://www.uis.unesco.org/ev.php?ID=6832_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC
• Educational Equity and Public Policy: Comparing Results from 16 Countries
  http://www.uis.unesco.org/ev.php?ID=6919_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC
• Using International Surveys of Achievement and Literacy: A View from the Outside
  http://www.uis.unesco.org/ev.php?ID=5886_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC

Powerpoint Presentation >>

For more information, please contact: A. De Grauwe

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