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on Education |
| By: | Meschi, Elena; Pavese, Caterina |
| Abstract: | Using longitudinal data from the Italian National Institute for the Evaluation of the Education System (INVALSI), this paper investigates whether the ability of classmates affects the educational attainment of immigrant students. We focus not only on the average quality of peers in the class, but we further investigate which part of the ability distribution of peers drives the effect, by assessing the role played by the extreme tails of the ability distribution. Our empirical strategy addresses students' endogenous sorting into classes by exploiting the within-student across-subjects variation in achievements and the simultaneity problem by using predetermined measures of peers' ability. We show that peers' ability matters. While native students are mostly influenced by the average quality of their peers, immigrant children are detrimentally affected by the fraction of very low achievers in the classroom. Our findings provide valuable guidance to policymakers concerning the allocation of students to classes in order to foster immigrant students' integration and learning. |
| Keywords: | Peer effects, Immigrant students, Education |
| JEL: | J15 I21 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1225&r=edu |
| By: | David N. Figlio; Umut Özek |
| Abstract: | School systems around the world use achievement tests to assign students to schools, classes, and instructional resources, including remediation. Using a regression discontinuity design, we study a Florida policy that places middle school students who score below a proficiency cutoff into remedial classes. Students scoring below the cutoff receive more educational resources, but they are also placed in classes that are more segregated by race, socio-economic status, and prior achievement. Increased tracking occurs not only in the remedial subject, but also in other core subjects. These tracking effects are significantly larger and more likely to persist beyond the year of remediation for Black students. |
| JEL: | I21 I24 I28 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30831&r=edu |
| By: | Maurer, Stephan (University of Konstanz); Schwerdt, Guido (University of Konstanz); Wiederhold, Simon (Ifo Institute for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | We study whether female students benefit from being taught by female professors, and whether such gender match effects differ by class size. We use administrative records of a German public university, covering all programs and courses between 2006 and 2018. We find that gender match effects on student performance are sizable in smaller classes, but do not exist in larger classes. This difference suggests that direct and frequent interactions between students and professors are important for the emergence of gender match effects. Instead, the mere fact that one's professor is female is not sufficient to increase performance of female students. |
| Keywords: | gender gap, role models, tertiary education, professors |
| JEL: | I21 I23 I24 J16 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15860&r=edu |
| By: | Blanden, Jo; Doepke, Matthias; Stuhler, Jan |
| Abstract: | This paper provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socio-economic backgrounds, show how patterns of educational inequality vary across countries, time, and generations, and establish a link between educational inequality and social mobility. We interpret this evidence from the perspective of economic models of skill acquisition and investment in human capital. The models account for different channels underlying unequal education and highlight how endogenous responses in parents' and children's educational investments generate a close link between economic inequality and educational inequality. Given concerns over the extended school closures during the Covid-19 pandemic, we also summarize early evidence on the impact of the pandemic on children's education and on possible long-run repercussions for educational inequality. |
| Keywords: | educational inequality; education finance; children |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2022–04–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:117857&r=edu |
| By: | Nadir ALTINOK; Claude DIEBOLT |
| Abstract: | Analyzing education does not only involve years of schooling, quality matters! This paper aims at providing better data on schooling with a focus on learning outcomes. It provides the largest dataset on learning outcomes, years of schooling and learning-adjusted year of schooling (LAYS) with comparable data between 1970 and 2020. The quantity dimension is measured by years of schooling and uses the latest data from Barro and Lee (2013), while the quality dimension is taken from linking standardized, psychometrically-robust international achievement tests and hybrid tests. The data are available for more than 120 countries between 1970 and 2020. Several findings can be highlighted. A global convergence on both learning outcomes and enrollment has occurred since 1970, but a breakdown can be found after 1990. A very low number of countries perform better over time regarding the quality of schooling, while most countries have a stable level of learning outcomes. |
| Keywords: | Quality, Human Capital, Education, International, Achievement, Database, Cliometrics, PISA, TIMSS, SACMEQ, PASEC, LLECE, EGRA. |
| JEL: | C8 I2 J24 N3 O15 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2023-02&r=edu |
| By: | Abbiati, Giovanni (University of Brescia); Azzolini, Davide (FBK-IRVAPP); Balanskat, Anja (European Schoolnet); Engelhart, Katja (European Schoolnet); Piazzalunga, Daniela (University of Trento); Rettore, Enrico (University of Padova); Wastiau, Patricia (European Schoolnet) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the effects of an online self-assessment tool on teachers' competencies and beliefs about ICT in education. The causal impact of the tool is evaluated through a randomized encouragement design, involving 7, 391 lower secondary teachers across 11 European countries. Short-run impact estimates show that the use of the tool led teachers to critically revise their technology-enhanced teaching competencies (-0.14 standard deviations) and their beliefs about ICT in education (-0.35 s.d.), while there is no impact on their probability of taking specific training. The effects are concentrated among teachers in the top-end tail of the distribution of pre-treatment outcomes. We provide suggestive evidence that the feedback score provided by the tool triggered such results by providing a negative information shock. |
| Keywords: | ICT, technology-enhanced teaching, self-assessed competencies, experimental design, teaching practices |
| JEL: | I21 C93 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15863&r=edu |
| By: | Komisarow, Sarah (Duke University); Hemelt, Steven W. (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) |
| Abstract: | The prevalence of school-based healthcare has increased markedly over the past decade. We study a modern mode of school-based healthcare, telemedicine, that offers the potential to reach places and populations with historically low access to such care. School-based telemedicine clinics (SBTCs) provide students with access to healthcare during the regular school day through private videoconferencing with a healthcare provider. We exploit variation over time in SBTC openings across schools in three rural districts in North Carolina. We find that school-level SBTC access reduces the likelihood that a student is chronically absent by 2.5 percentage points (29 percent) and reduces the number of days absent by about 0.8 days (10 percent). Relatedly, access to an SBTC increases the likelihood of math and reading test-taking by between 1.8- 2.0 percentage points (about 2 percent). Heterogeneity analyses suggest that these effects are driven by male students. Finally, we see suggestive evidence that SBTC access reduces violent or weapons-related disciplinary infractions among students but has little influence on other forms of misbehavior. |
| Keywords: | school-based healthcare, student absences, telemedicine |
| JEL: | I10 I21 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15858&r=edu |
| By: | Flavio Cunha; Qinyou Hu; Yiming Xia; Naibao Zhao |
| Abstract: | According to UNESCO, one-third of the world’s youths are victims of bullying, which deteriorates academic performance and mental health, and increases suicide ideation and the risk of committing suicide. This paper analyzes a four-month parent-directed intervention designed to foster empathy in middle schoolers in China. Our implementation and evaluation study enrolled 2, 246 seventh and eighth graders and their parents, whom we assigned, at the classroom level, to the control or intervention condition randomly. We measured, before and after the intervention, parental investments, children’s empathy, and self-reported bullying perpetration and victimization incidents. Our analyses show that the intervention increased investments and empathy and reduced bullying incidents. In addition, we measured costs and found that it costs $12.50 for our intervention to reduce one bullying incident. Our study offers a scalable and low-cost strategy that can inform public policy on bullying prevention in other similar settings. |
| JEL: | I10 I20 J24 O10 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30827&r=edu |
| By: | Zhang, Zheyuan (Renmin University of China); Zhao, Zhong (Renmin University of China) |
| Abstract: | Using data from the China Family Panel Studies, this paper exploits the Compulsory Education Law of China implemented in the 1980s to empirically examine the causal impact of women's education on fertility in rural China by difference-in-differences methods. The results show that an additional year of schooling lowered the number of children a woman would have by approximately 0.09 children, postponed the age of first childbirth by 0.7 years, and reduced the probability of having a second child or more children by 0.18 among those mothers whose first child was a girl. In addition to the income effect, these results are also partly explained by more educated women preferring quality to quantity of children, placing a greater value on leisure and no longer perceiving children as the sole focus in their lives. |
| Keywords: | women's education, fertility, demographic transition, compulsory education law, quality and quantity of children |
| JEL: | I25 J11 J13 |
| Date: | 2023–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15857&r=edu |