A New Perspective On The International Achievement Gap: Is Academic Autonomy Good For Everyone?

There is a growing literature and interest on the study of the cognitive achievement gap between the top and bottom SES groups. Amidst public concern for this distancing between social classes, researchers have been unable to find an adequate explanation for the increasing cross-country inequality. In this paper, I argue that we need to refocus our efforts towards understanding better what correlates with the academic performance of both SES groups separately. By shifting attention to the amount of school autonomy that different schools have, I show that school autonomy over academic content, courses and text books is associated with a decrease of test scores of nearly .4 standard deviations for the bottom 10% performers in mathematics and literacy – a whole grade’s worth of knowledge. I show that this relationship holds under several specifications, including fixed effect models. In contrast, the same relationship turns positive when relating to the top 10% of students but it’s much weaker than for the bottom performers. These results point out that perhaps an explanation to the changing gaps is not symmetrical between groups but rather group specific. The importance of understanding what affects separate SES groups is paramount to understanding the achievement gap and these preliminary results can have important implications in policy making as they speak directly to education policy makers trying to fine tune the autonomy measures of their country

A New Perspective On The International Achievement Gap: Is Academic Autonomy Good For Everyone?

There is a growing literature and interest on the study of the cognitive achievement gap between the top and bottom SES groups. Amidst public concern for this distancing between social classes, researchers have been unable to find an adequate explanation for the increasing cross-country inequality. In this paper, I argue that we need to refocus our efforts towards understanding better what correlates with the academic performance of both SES groups separately. By shifting attention to the amount of school autonomy that different schools have, I show that school autonomy over academic content, courses and text books is associated with a decrease of test scores of nearly .4 standard deviations for the bottom 10% performers in mathematics and literacy – a whole grade’s worth of knowledge. I show that this relationship holds under several specifications, including fixed effect models. In contrast, the same relationship turns positive when relating to the top 10% of students but it’s much weaker than for the bottom performers. These results point out that perhaps an explanation to the changing gaps is not symmetrical between groups but rather group specific. The importance of understanding what affects separate SES groups is paramount to understanding the achievement gap and these preliminary results can have important implications in policy making as they speak directly to education policy makers trying to fine tune the autonomy measures of their country

Educational institutions and their effect on inequality: three papers on educational systems and inequality of achievement and opportunity

By placing particular attention to the socio-economic dimension, this thesis explores the role of three pillars of an educational system: decentralization, early education and curricular tracking. The first article focuses on an experiment in Mexico that aimed to increase parental empowerment in the school's decision-making. Results show that increased participation produced an increase in cognitive abilities, however, this was mediated by the SES of the student. The second article brings an international perspective by comparing the evolution of the achievement gap over time in 32 countries. The findings suggest that tracking and vocational enrollment are important explanatory mechanisms of the cross-country variability in achievement gaps. The third article studies whether early education is associated with adult outcomes but concentrating on a particularly vulnerable population in the United States: GED recipients. Results show that participation in early education is associated with greater odds of graduating high school over attaining a GED.Esta tesis explora el rol de tres pilares de un sistema educativo: descentralización, educación temprana y seguimiento curricular. El primer artículo estudia un experimento en México que tuvo como objetivo aumentar el empoderamiento de padres en la toma de decisiones en la escuela. Los resultados muestran que mayor participación de los padres aumentó las habilidades cognitivas de sus hijos. Sin embargo, esto fue mediado por el SES del estudiante. El segundo artículo compara la evolución de la brecha de logros en 32 países. Los hallazgos sugieren que el seguimiento curricular y los estudios vocacionales pueden ser mecanismos explicativos de la brecha. El tercer artículo estudia si la educación temprana está asociada con resultados positivos en la adultez en Estados Unidos. Los resultados muestran que la participación en educación temprana está asociado con mayores probabilidades de graduarse de la escuela secundaria en comparación con la obtención de un GED

Educational institutions and their effect on inequality: three papers on educational systems and inequality of achievement and opportunity

By placing particular attention to the socio-economic dimension, this thesis explores the role of three pillars of an educational system: decentralization, early education and curricular tracking. The first article focuses on an experiment in Mexico that aimed to increase parental empowerment in the school's decision-making. Results show that increased participation produced an increase in cognitive abilities, however, this was mediated by the SES of the student. The second article brings an international perspective by comparing the evolution of the achievement gap over time in 32 countries. The findings suggest that tracking and vocational enrollment are important explanatory mechanisms of the cross-country variability in achievement gaps. The third article studies whether early education is associated with adult outcomes but concentrating on a particularly vulnerable population in the United States: GED recipients. Results show that participation in early education is associated with greater odds of graduating high school over attaining a GED.Esta tesis explora el rol de tres pilares de un sistema educativo: descentralización, educación temprana y seguimiento curricular. El primer artículo estudia un experimento en México que tuvo como objetivo aumentar el empoderamiento de padres en la toma de decisiones en la escuela. Los resultados muestran que mayor participación de los padres aumentó las habilidades cognitivas de sus hijos. Sin embargo, esto fue mediado por el SES del estudiante. El segundo artículo compara la evolución de la brecha de logros en 32 países. Los hallazgos sugieren que el seguimiento curricular y los estudios vocacionales pueden ser mecanismos explicativos de la brecha. El tercer artículo estudia si la educación temprana está asociada con resultados positivos en la adultez en Estados Unidos. Los resultados muestran que la participación en educación temprana está asociado con mayores probabilidades de graduarse de la escuela secundaria en comparación con la obtención de un GED

The differential impact of physical distancing strategies on social contacts relevant for the spread of SARS-CoV-2: Evidence from a cross-national online survey, March – April 2020

Data on social contact numbers in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic (March-April 2020) in 7 European countries and the US

timriffe/covid_age

A global demographic database of COVID-19 cases and deaths

Data Resource Profile: COVerAGE-DB: a global demographic database of COVID-19 cases and deaths

Riffe T, Acosta E, Aburto JM, et al. Data Resource Profile: COVerAGE-DB: a global demographic database of COVID-19 cases and deaths. International Journal of Epidemiology. 2021;50(2):390-390f