Education Policy and Equality of Opportunity

Gabriela Schütz, Heinrich Ursprung and Ludger Woessmann

No 1518, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We provide a measure of equality of educational opportunity in 54 countries, estimated as the effect of family background on student performance in two international TIMSS tests. We then show how organizational features of the education system affect equality of educational opportunity. Our model predicts that late tracking and a long pre-school cycle are beneficial for equality, while pre-school enrollment is detrimental at low levels of enrollment and beneficial at higher levels. Using cross-country variations in education policies and their interaction with family background at the student level, we provide empirical evidence supportive of these predictions.

Keywords: equality of opportunity; educational production; family background; student performance; tracking; pre-school; efficiency-equity tradeoff (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H52 I21 J62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-ltv, nep-pbe and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (56)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Education Policy and Equality of Opportunity (2008)
Working Paper: Education policy and equality of opportunity (2008)
Working Paper: Education Policy and Equality of Opportunity (2005)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1518

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