The International Observatory on Academic Achievement - Documentary search

File number :
IST-ISC-10e

Bibliographic reference :
 Gouvernement du Québec, ministère de l’Éducation du Québec (2003). The School Population Map and Poverty Indices. Education Statistics Bulletin. [On line]. No. 26, march 2003.
<http://www.mels.gouv.qc.ca/>

Abstract :

The Ministère de l’Éducation du Québec (Canada) releases Education Statistics Bulletins to present regional, national and international data on education and school systems along with relevant analyses. The bulletin entitled The School Population Map and Poverty Indices was released in March 2003. It explains the various methods used by the Ministère de l’Éducation du Québec over the years to determine the annual amount of funding envelopes granted to the Quebec school boards.

Evolution of Poverty Indices
Primary and secondary school financing is established using a school population map that shows the geographical distribution of students living in poverty. Poverty indices represented on this map are calculated on the basis of economic and cultural indicators having an influence on academic achievement, such as family income and maternal educational level.

Several models have been used since 1977. The former global poverty index of the Ministère did not apply exactly the same variables to calculate the indices of urban and rural territories. This method had the effect of painting an essentially urban picture of poverty.

At the end of the 1980s, this index was discarded, as it no longer adequately portrayed the socioeconomic situation in Quebec. It was at that time that the poverty index based on the low-income cut-off was adopted. This index essentially corresponds to the proportion of families living under the low-income cut-off line. This index was originally created to depict poverty on Island of Montréal. Its application to Quebec as a whole was problematic and became a source of dissatisfaction in several remote areas of the province. The representatives of these areas claimed that this index did not provide an accurate picture of student poverty in their territories.

More recently, research based on information from the 1996 census and school data has led to identifying variables having a significant influence on academic achievement. The socioeconomic environment index derived from this research takes into account maternal undereducation and parental economic inactivity. This new index can explain over 50% of the variation in academic underachievement.

Despite improvement made to these tools, they still have the disadvantage of being “ecological indices” that suppose that the population within a given territory is homogenous. Thus, the socioeconomic diversity of students in a school is not considered. The growing importance of the school population map and indices for the Ministère points to the need for more research in this field.

Links :
http://www.mels.gouv.qc.ca/

Key Words :
School Population Map, Poverty Indices, Student Retention, School Dropout, Maternal Undereducation, Parental Economic Inactivity, Low Income, Underprivileged Environments, Elementary School, Primary School, Secondary/High School

Monitored Countries :
Quebec (Canada)