Socioeconomic segregation of students

School segregation may be questioning the equity of the Spanish educational system. In this research, we analyse the school segregation by socioeconomic status using the Hutchens Index. Specifically, we decompose the effect of attending public vs semiprivate schools in terms of segregation. The analyses is based on data collecting information from the population of Andalusian students attending 5th grade. We found significant differences in the level of segregation between both schools types. Particularly, the results show that students from high socioeconomic and cultural status are more segregated in public schools, while students from a low socioeconomic and cultural status are more segregated in semiprivate schools. These differences provide evidence of the inequity of the education policy, which should rethink funding mechanisms as a means to fight against inequality.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. The data used in this research has been provided by the Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Andalucía. This work has been partly supported by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under Research Project ECO2017-88883-R; Consejería de Innovación, Ciencia y Empresa de la Junta de Andalucía under PAI group SEJ-532. Claudia Prieto Latorre acknowledges the scholarship FPU2017 00432 of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports [Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte] and the training received from the University of Malaga PhD Program in Economics and Business [Programa de Doctorado en Economía y Empresa de la Universidad de Malaga]

Is grade retention the solution for failing?

The convenience of grade retention for students’ adequate progression in the education system has been the focus of great debate. However, the characteristics that the grade retention variable presents when explaining students’ academic achievement has prevented most of the research works to delve into the effect of this policy. Because of that, in the present research work we intend to get as close as possible to endogeneity free estimate by the use of rich census and longitudinal data, together with a student fixed-effects within students between-academic years strategy. We find that grade retention affects students’ academic performance. Autores: Luis Alejandro Lopez-Agudo, Claudia Prieto Latorre, Oscar David Marcenaro-Gutierrez Palabras clave: grade retention, repetion, academic performance.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Parents' and Children's Gender: the effect of parental expectations in children's performance

Parental expectations have been found in the literature to explain their children’s academic achievement. Nevertheless, most of the evidence on this issue is the result of the endogeneity of parental expectations when explaining students’ performance. In this context, we propose to solve this issue by using longitudinal data for the education period of the transition between primary and secondary education, employing time fixed effects to analyse the effect of parental expectations on students’ progression – being the latter measured by students’ academic achievement and their likelihood of grade repetition. We go more into depth on this issue by the study of gender differences of this effect, using all possible combinations between parents’ and children’s genders. Our results have shown that higher fathers’ and mothers’ expectations improve students’ progression, but parents seem to be more demanding with girls in terms of levels of education.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

The effect of ordinal rank at school on students’ academic performance

School peers can condition students’ academic performance in different ways. On the one hand, students’ academic progression is driven by the level of academic performance of their peers. Second, students’ self-perception about their own ability is made of their comparison with their peers. This research investigate these two effects of having high-skilled peers, that seems to run in opposite directions. Additionally, in this study we analyse the effect of students’ relative rank within their school in terms of their socioeconomic and cultural status. We follow an empirical approach using data from Canary Island, which is a Spanish region which exhibits a low level of academic performance. The estimation procedure used has been a value added model, which account for previous academic performance in absolute terms and also control for students’ socioeconomic level. Results show that having high-skilled peers in 3rd grade of primary is negative for students’ educational attainment in 6th grade. We have also explored the existence of different behaviour by gender. Result are consistent across gender, although it seems that being on the top of their class has slightly higher influence on girls’ than boys’ academic performance. This result has consequence on parental decisions about school choice, and reveals that having high-skilled classmates has drawbacks for students’ self-concept of their academic skills.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

El poder de las expectativas en los años de escolarización de los estudiantes

Both students and parents have expectations about students’ academic future. The present study analyses the influence of both sets of expectations when students are at age 15-16 on the level of education achieved by students when they are 23-24 years old. For this purpose, a structural equation model is estimated by three-stage least squares, using panel data for the most populated Spanish region (Andalusia). Results show that when both students and parents expect degree level education (i.e. 16 years of schooling) the student appears to come quite close to achieving that level. They also show that socio-cultural variables, together with students’ cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes, seem to explain the mechanism of formation of expectations and students’ completed years of schooling.Tanto los estudiantes como los padres tienen expectativas con respecto al futuro académico de los primeros. El presente estudio analiza la influencia que tienen ambos conjuntos de expectativas entre los alumnos con edades comprendidas entre los 15 y los 16 años sobre el nivel educativo alcanzado por aquéllos a los 23-24 años. Con este fin, se realiza una estimación de un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales mediante mínimos cuadrados en tres etapas, utilizando datos de paneles correspondientes a la comunidad autónoma más poblada de España (Andalucía). Los resultados revelan que cuando tanto los estudiantes como los padres esperan llegar a un nivel educativo que culmine en la consecución de un grado universitario (es decir, 16 años de asistencia a clase), parece que el estudiante se acerca bastante a alcanzar dicho nivel. Los resultados muestran asimismo que las variables socioculturales, junto con los resultados cognitivos y no cognitivos de los alumnos, aparentemente explican el mecanismo de formación de expectativas y los años de escolarización que completan los estudiantes

Parents’ and students’ gender-interaction: the effect of parental expectations

The study of the effect on students’ academic achievement of their parents’ expectations has been widely explored; nevertheless, most of the existing evidence for the Spanish case is purely correlational and subject to endogeneity, due to the lack of longitudinal information. The current research intends to provide further insight into this subject by analysing whether parental expectations play a relevant role in determining students’ progression from primary to secondary education, and the use of time fixed effects let to deal with the mentioned problems. This progression is studied by analysing the effect of parental expectations on students’ academic achievement and their likelihood of grade repetition. In addition, all possible interactions between parents’ and children’s genders are explored to study this issue.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec

Do school preferences differ between mothers and fathers? International evidence from PISA

A sizeable literature – spanning education, sociology and economics – has investigated the issue of parental school preferences and school choice. A notable gap in the existing evidence base is an exploration of how such preferences differ between mothers and fathers. We present new cross-national findings on this matter, drawing on survey data collected from more than 300,000 parents across 25 countries. Our findings suggest that mothers rate the school environment – whether the school is safe and has a pleasant atmosphere – to be more important than fathers. Differences are also observed with respect to the school’s reputation and whether it has a high level of achievement. Clearer evidence of such differences emerges for industrialised Western nations than for countries that are not members of the OECD. In most countries, mothers’ and fathers’ preferences do not vary substantially between sons and daughters

An international analysis of parental school preferences.

Parents are concerned about their children’s educational progress, and thus school choice has an important role in parenting. This research analyses the features when choosing a school in the countries participating in the Programme for International Students Assessment between 2009 and 2018. Specifically, this study seeks to understand whether there are variation in mothers and fathers school preferences related to school safety, school climate, reputation, finance and academic standards. Ordinal logistic regressions illustrate that mothers are more likely to indicate that a school environment is important when selecting a school compared to fathers. Specifically, this difference is larger in Western regions. In addition, we did not identify meaningful parental differences between sons and daughters. In light of these findings, it would be useful to collect data from both mother and father, particularly in the areas where their opinions are more likely to differ.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

An analysis of parental satisfaction with school

This article presents an analysis of factors which are important in the satisfaction with schools during primary education by families. The empirical evidence herein is based on students attending primary education in Spain, a country with a highly centralized school system. The follow-up of students during this period allows to analyse the progression of parental satisfaction. A number of parent and school-related factors have been found to be statistically reliable predictors of parental satisfaction. We highlight that not only educational progress, but also child well-being and self-confidence are significant. This evidence suggests that the design of educational programs which promotes the development of soft-skills can increase parental satisfaction with the school.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Comparing parental satisfaction with their child’s school during primary and secondary education

A wide array of research has investigated the correlates and consequences of parental satisfaction with their child’s school. In brief, parents look at academic performance, but also other non-academic dimensions such as children well-being. However, the evidence exploring the changes in parental demands between primary and secondary education is still scarce. In order to address this question, we use data from PISA and PIRLS and employ OLS, including school fixed effects and students’ weights. We illustrate how there is in general a broadly consistent cross-country pattern of the results across the primary and secondary school sectors. This suggests that the overall picture one gets about parental satisfaction with school is broadly similar.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tec