Heterogeneity, school-effects and the North/South achievement gap in Italian secondary education: evidence from a three-level mixed model

Tommaso Agasisti (), Francesca Ieva () and Anna Maria Paganoni
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Francesca Ieva: Università degli Studi di Milano
Anna Maria Paganoni: Politecnico di Milano

Statistical Methods & Applications, 2017, vol. 26, issue 1, No 7, 157-180

Abstract: Abstract With the aim of assessing the extent of the differences in the context of Italian educational system, the paper applies multilevel modeling to a new administrative dataset, containing detailed information for more than 500,000 students at grade 6 in the year 2011/2012, provided by the Italian Institute for the Evaluation of Educational System. Data are grouped by classes, schools and geographical areas. Different models for each area are fitted, in order to properly address the heteroscedasticity of the phenomenon. The results show that it is possible to estimate statistically significant “school effects”, i.e., the positive/negative association of attending a specific school and the student’s test score, after a case-mix adjustment. Therefore, the paper’s most important message is that school effects are different in terms of magnitude and types in the three geographical macro areas (Northern, Central and Southern Italy) and are dependent on specific students’ and schools’ characteristics.

Keywords: Child development; Multilevel models; School effectiveness; Value-added model; Contextual effects; Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10260-016-0363-x

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