Challenges to quality and equity in educational performance for Latin America, a PISA 2012 perspective

Authors

  • Antonio Villar Universidad Pablo de Olvide
  • Pablo Zoido Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/relieve.22.1.8273

Keywords:

PISA, Latin American countries, OECD, high and low performers, advantaged and disadvantaged families.

Abstract

This paper analyses the educational performance of eight PISA 2012 Latin American countries relative to the OECD focusing on equity in the distribution of outcomes. We consider first the results of those countries in terms of the shares of high and low performing students. Next we study how much those performances depend on the students’ family background. We use the data on mathematical competencies in PISA 2012 and compare the results of those students coming from disadvantaged and advantaged families, identified with those in the first and fourth quartiles of the distribution of the index of Economic and Socio-Cultural Status. The main results of this study are: (i) The differences in the educational systems between Latin American countries and the OECD are much larger than suggested by country rankings based on mean performance. (ii) The share of Latin American students exhibiting high performance is extremely thin, particularly among disadvantaged students, whereas low performance is pervasive across all students regardless of family background. (ii) Socio-economic conditions strongly determine high performance, much more than in the OECD.

Author Biographies

Antonio Villar, Universidad Pablo de Olvide

Chair at University of Alicante since 1989, where he has developed his work until 2005, year in which he joined the University Pablo de Olavide, Seville. He holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Oxford and has been a visiting professor at the Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven), at Stanford University, at the European University Institute and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna . In 2010, he received the XVI Andalucía Research Award 'Ibn al-Khatib'

Pablo Zoido, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

Analyst OECD. Pablo joined the PISA team in September 2008 and currently works on PISA for Development. Prior to joining PISA, he worked as a researcher at the World Bank from 1997 to 2001 and at Stanford University from 2004 to 2005.  In 2006 he joined the OECD Development Centre where he worked as an economist on the Latin American and Caribbean Desk. He holds Master degrees from Johns Hopkins and Stanford universities.

References

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Published

2016-07-08

Issue

Vol. 22 No. 1 (2016)

Section

Special Section

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