Inequality of opportunity for educational achievement in Latin America: Evidence from PISA 2006–2009

Luis Gamboa and Fábio Waltenberg ()

Economics of Education Review, 2012, vol. 31, issue 5, 694-708

Abstract: We evaluate how far away six Latin American countries stand from a normative goal of equality of opportunity for educational achievement in PISA 2006–2009. We work with alternative characterizations of types: gender, school type (public or private), parental education, and their combinations. Following Checchi–Peragine's (2010) non-parametric method, we find that inequality of opportunity for educational achievement in Latin America ranges from less than 1% to up to 25%, depending on the year, the country, the subject and the specification of circumstances. These magnitudes are substantial with respect to what is found in comparator countries. Parental education and school type prove to be important sources of inequality of opportunity, contrary to gender. By means of sensitivity analyses, while most results show small to moderate variation in terms of magnitudes, in ordinal terms (rankings) they remain quite stable. Brazil stands out as the most opportunity-unequal country of the sample.

Keywords: Equality of opportunities; Equity; Education; Latin America (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 I24 O54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (55)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:31:y:2012:i:5:p:694-708

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2012.05.002

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