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

Cimentada, Jorge

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

Document Type

Doctoral thesis
Published Version

Author

Cimentada, Jorge

Director

Arpino, Bruno
Esping-Andersen, Gosta

Publication Date

2019-09-25

Pages

276 p.

License

Citation

Cimentada, J. Educational institutions and their effect on inequality: three papers on educational systems and inequality of achievement and opportunity. Universitat Pompeu Fabra; 2019. handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/667640

This citation was generated automatically.

Doctoral program

Programa de doctorat en Ciències Polítiques i Socials

Abstract

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.

Keywords

Education research, Quantitative sociology, Policy evaluation, Comparative education, Statistical simulation, Bayesian analysis, Curricular tracking, Early childhood development, RCT, Policy intervention, Cognitive abilities, Non-cognitive abilities, Social mobility, Achievement gap, Inequality, Sociology of education, Investigación educativa, Sociología cuantitativa, Evaluación de políticas, Evaluación de políticas educativas, Educación comparativa, Simulación estadística, Análisis bayesiano, Seguimiento curricular, Educación temprana, Experimentos controlados, Habilidades cognitivas, Habilidades no cognitivas, Movilidad social, Brecha de logros, Desigualdad, Sociología de la educación