Analysing ability grouping in secondary school: A way to improve academic performance and mitigate educational inequalities in Spain?

Bruno Blanco-Varela, José Manuel Amoedo and María Carmen Sánchez-Carreira

International Journal of Educational Development, 2024, vol. 107, issue C

Abstract: Socio-educational vulnerability refers to the circumstances in which students face difficulties or challenges arising from socio-economic or contextual factors, such as a lack of resources or adverse family environments. Ability grouping during secondary school is widely used to improve student performance. The methodology tailored to students performance levels aims at providing improvements in their scores. This paper explores the complex relationship between ability grouping and socio-educational vulnerability. More specifically, it investigates how different student groups are affected by attending schools that implement ability grouping as compared to those that do not. The study is conducted in Spain, using the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) database and Propensity Score Matching methodology. The findings suggest that the ability grouping policy hinder equal opportunities for academically disadvantaged students, resulting in decreasing their abilities.

Keywords: Ability grouping; Socio-educational vulnerability; Efficiency; Educational inequalities; Educational economics; Propensity score matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I24 I25 I26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059324000506
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:injoed:v:107:y:2024:i:c:s0738059324000506

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2024.103028

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Educational Development is currently edited by Stephen P Heyneman

More articles in International Journal of Educational Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().