The weight of the school's socio-economic context in educational outcomes: the Chilean experience

Abstract

Economic, social, and educational resources predict academic outcomes and parents' and students' attitudes toward schooling. However, the distinction between the socioeconomic context of the school and that of the family is necessary when we try to understand how the school reinforces inequalities or contributes to more equity. Our study was conducted in Chile, marked by decades of strong neoliberal educational policies that induce a substantial academic outcomes variability between schools compared to other countries. This study aims to test the weight of the individual, family, and school determinants on academic outcomes. We analyzed a national sample of 103 733 secondary school students. Results of the correlation analysis show that parental expectations are lower for students with lower socioeconomic levels and attending schools classified in the lower socioeconomic group. Results from multilevel models show that, after controlling for key demographic individual variables, parents and students' attitudes toward school and students' prior achievements, the school average in standardized tests, and the school socioeconomic level explain practically all of the between-school variability. Students from the most disadvantaged families are threefold penalized in Chile: (1) they cannot afford higher education programs, (2) their parents have lower expectations of their further education, and (3) they attend schools concentrating other disadvantaged students with low academic achievement which hinders their progress. We will discuss these findings in light of structural changes implemented to increase equity in Chile since 2013, emphasizing that the long-lasting effects of these reforms have yet to be proven.