The International Observatory on Academic Achievement - Documentary search

File number :
IST-ISC-22e

Bibliographic reference :
Brownell, M., Roos, N., Fransoo, R., & al. (2006). Is the Class Half Empty? A Population-Based Perspective on Socioeconomic Status and Educational Outcomes. IRPP Choices, 12(5), Institute for Research on Public Policy.

Abstract :

There is widespread consensus that students from underprivileged socio-economic backgrounds are more at-risk of obtaining poorer academic results than students from more privileged backgrounds. Therefore, educational policies have been implemented to foster academic achievement for all. The effects of these initiatives had to be assessed prior to determining the scope of resources to be vested in order to achieve this objective. In general, this assessment was conducted through tests administered to students at various stages of their academic careers. But does this assessment account fairly for educational inequalities related to socio-economic level?

A New Approach to Measure the Scope of Inequalities
A Canadian group of researchers from the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP) looked into this issue and developed a new population-based assessment approach to obtain a more complete picture of the state of educational inequalities. This approach considers all children of a given age and not only those in school, contrary to assessment methods generally used.

This approach is also different in that its results are examined according to the children’s place of residence rather than the school they attend. This perspective prevents attributing excessive responsibility for students’ poor performance to schools and teachers, thus enabling other factors likely to influence academic achievement to be considered, such as socio-economic status.

Inequalities More Pronounced Than First Believed
The researchers examined the academic results of two cohorts of Manitoba children born in the same year, regardless of whether they were in school or not or had been falling behind in their academic career or not. The assessment was conducted at two points in time of their academic career (3rd and 12th grades).

Using traditional school-based testing, i.e., the assessment of grade 12 students with a language arts performance test, a proportion of 75% of students from underprivileged backgrounds and a proportion of 90% of students from more privileged backgrounds passed the test. Although there was a gap between the two groups, this approach enabled the majority of students to pass the test, regardless of their socio-economic status.

Using a population-based approach, the gap was far greater than had been previously believed. Only 25% of students from the most underprivileged backgrounds passed the test at an age-appropriate time compared to 75% of students from better-off neighbourhoods. This outcome highlighted the fact that a large number of youths from underprivileged backgrounds simply do not reach the last high school grade, at least not at the time usually expected.

Analyses also revealed that this achievement gap starts as early as third grade in the academic career. With the traditional assessment method, this gap is rather narrow. Indeed, the academic achievement rate of students from underprivileged backgrounds was 83% versus 94% for students from more privileged backgrounds. With a population-based approach including all children who should have been writing the test, the gap widened significantly: 50% for children from underprivileged backgrounds versus 84% for students from more privileged backgrounds.

The same phenomenon repeated itself for achievement discrepancies between female and male students. With the traditional method, 89.9% of female students succeeded in language arts versus 82.4% of male students. With the population-based approach, the gap between female and male students also widened (61.6% of female students versus 47.6% of male students). In underprivileged areas, the gap was the widest.

In mathematics, hardly any differences were observed between female and male students’ academic scores with the traditional approach. With the population-based approach, female students performed better than male students, especially in underprivileged areas.

Conclusion
The authors stressed the importance of implementing an assessment system that offers a more complete picture of student outcomes and needs-based policies. In addition, policies aimed at countering educational inequalities should extend beyond the school setting (e.g., programmes for parents, early childhood programmes).

Links :
http://www.irpp.org/fr/index.htm

Key Words :
Socio-economic Status, Scope of Inequalities, Standardized Tests, Population-based Approach, Accountability, Educational Policies, Language, Mathematics, Gender, Primary, Elementary, Secondary/High School, Newsletter6

Monitored Countries :
Canada (Manitoba)