Session Information
09 SES 04 C, Social Disparities in Education (Part 1)
Paper Session
Contribution
Since the early 1990s the Swedish school system has undergone some fundamental changes. The shift of control and responsibilities of education from central government to different levels of local authorities, the increasing number of independent schools and the introduction of a voucher system with free school choice have thoroughly transformed the Swedish school system into a highly decentralized and deregulated one (e.g., Björklund et al., 2005).
While educational quality and equality of Swedish schools is still at a relatively high level internationally, trends towards increased socioeconomic and ethnic segregation of students have been observed in recent studies (Gustafsson, 2006; Yang Hansen, Cliffordson & Gustafsson, 2010). It may be assumed that these trends are at least partially due to the increased frequency of school choice (e.g., Levin, 1998). There also are tendencies towards increased differences in level of achievement between schools (Gustafsson & Yang Hansen, 2009), which may be related to differences between municipalities in the amount of support to education, such as the percentage of certified teacher, since each municipality is free to decide how the school funding should be allocated and how its schools be managed. It may also be related to the increased socioeconomic and ethnic segregation, since research findings indicate that schools with a greater percentage of students from high SES family background provide more favorable learning environments, which leads to a higher school average achievement (e.g., Ammermüller & Pischke, 2009; Hanushek et al., 2003).
Another interesting line of studies examines the social and ethnic segregation in schools through looking at the mobility of students of different background over time. Studying school choice and segregation, the Swedish National Agency for Education has reported a trend that children of middle class families moved out of the school when the proportion students with ethnic background reached to a certain level (Skolverket, 1996, 2003; see also, Willms,1996). As a result, the between school segregation by social class increased substantially. Such segregation trend with respect to student’s social and ethnic background is typically associated with an uneven distribution of resources, the most important of which is teacher competence, as can be measured by teacher qualifications across schools and municipalities. In turn, affect the increasing variations in educational achievements between schools and municipalities (e.g., Clotfelter, Ladd & Vigdor, 2010).
Even though the assumption that socioeconomic and ethnic segregation and differences in teacher resource account for the educational achievement differences sounds reasonable, the empirical evidences of the causal links among these aspects are, however, rather limited in Sweden. The proposed study is to test the hypothesis, by examining the trend in and the causal links between school marks, student background (i.e., parental educational level and proportion students within ethnic background) and teacher competence over the decade between 1998 and 2008 at the aggregated municipality level. The Gothenburg Educational Longitudinal Database (GOLD) contains ample amount of educational and demographic information on all individuals being born year 1972-1992. This makes it possible to study the development of segregation over an extended period of time of 1998-2008.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Ammermüller, A. & Pischke, J-S. (2009). Peer Effects in European Primary Schools: Evidence from PIRLS. Journal of Labor Economics, 27(3), 315-348. Björklund, A., Clark, M., Edin, P-E., Fredriksson, P., & Krueger, A. B. (2005). The Market Comes to Education in Sweden. An Evaluation of Sweden’s Surprising School Reforms. New York: Russel Sage Foundation. Clotfelter, C. T., Ladd, H. F. & Vigdor, J. L. (2010).Teacher Mobility, School Segregation, and Pay‐Based Policies to Level the Playing Field. CALDER Working Paper No. 44. Hedeker, D. (2004). An introduction to growth modelling. In D. Kaplan (Ed.), Quantitative Methodology for the Social Sciences. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications. Hanushek, E. A., Kain, J. F., Markman, J. M., & Rivkin, S. G. (2003). Does Peer Ability Affect Student Achievement? Journal of Applied Econometrics, 18(5), 527-544. Gustafsson, J.-E. (2006). Barns Utbildningssituation [Children's Educational Situation]. Stockholm: Rädda Barnen [Save the Children Sweden]. Gustafsson, J.-E. & Yang Hansen, K. (2009). Resultatförändringar i svensk grundskola [Changes in Educational Outcomes in Swedish Compulsory Schools]. I L. M. Olsson (red.) Vad påverkar resultaten i grundskolan? Stockholm: Skolverket. Levin, H. M. (1998). Educational Vouchers: Effectiveness, Choice and Costs. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 17(3), 373-392. Yang Hansen, K., Cliffordson, C., Gustafsson, J-E. (2010). Changes in the variances of school marks and SES and ethnic background effect between schools and individuals – a multi-level multi-group analysis. Paper presented at ECER 2010, Helsinki, Finland. Skolverket. (2003). Valfrihet och dess effekter inom skolområdet. En belysning av begreppet valfrihet och valfrihetens effekter inom skolan [School Choice and Its Effects. An elucidation of the concept of freedom of choice and the effects of school]. Stockholm: Skolverket. Willms, J. D. (1996). School Choice and Community Segregation: Findings from Scotland In A. Kerckhoff (Ed.), Generating Social Stratification: Toward a New Research Agenda. Boulder, CO: West view Press.
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