 Socioeconomic inequality and regional disparities in educational achievement: The role of relative povertyIntelligence, 2021, vol. 84, issue C Abstract: The relationship between PISA 2012 maths test scores and relative poverty was tested in a sample of 35 Italian and Spanish regions, together with a larger sample that included Australian, Belgian, and Canadian regions. The correlation between mean scores in mathematics, adjusted for students' socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, and poverty rates is ‐−0.84 for the Italian and Spanish sample, and −0.68 for the complete sample. In the regressions, the effect of relative poverty on mean scores in mathematics is highly significant (p < 0.01), robust to different specifications, and independent from students' backgrounds and regional development levels. It is proposed that disparities in average scores in mathematics across regions depend on the shares of low-performing students which, in turn, depend on the degree of relative poverty within regions. The implications for the thesis according to which, in Italy and Spain, regional disparities in educational achievements reflect genetic differences in the IQ of populations are discussed. Keywords: Relative poverty; PISA; IQ; Regional inequalities (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:intell:v:84:y:2021:i:c:s0160289620300933 DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2020.101515 Access Statistics for this article Intelligence is currently edited by R.J. Haier More articles in Intelligence from Elsevier |
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