Relative Age, Class Assignment and Academic Performance: Evidence from Brazilian Primary Schools

Martin Foureaux Koppensteiner

No 16/10, Discussion Papers in Economics from Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester

Abstract: Students in Brazil are typically assigned to classes based on the age ranking in their cohort. I exploit this rule to estimate the effects on maths achievement of being in class with older peers for students in fifth grade. I find that being assigned to the older class leads to a drop in Math scores of about 0.4 of a standard deviation for students at the cut-off. I provide evidence that heterogeneity in age is an important factor behind this effect. Information on teaching practices and student behaviour sheds light on how class heterogeneity harms learning.

Keywords: Primary education; group effects; group heterogeneity; regression discontinuity; Brazil. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-eff, nep-pr~ and nep-ure
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Related works:
Journal Article: Relative Age, Class Assignment, and Academic Performance: Evidence from Brazilian Primary Schools (2018)
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