Does school socioeconomic composition matter more in some countries than others, and if so, why?

ABSTRACT

International research has consistently found that the socioeconomic segregation of schools may worsen inequalities in schooling outcomes through the socioeconomic compositional effect. This study examines whether the socioeconomic compositional effect varies between developed countries and potential mechanisms by which national schooling systems moderate its effect. The results suggest that the socioeconomic compositional effect does vary between developed countries and that national differences in its size were partially explained by policies of tracking age and the proportion of students that attend public schools. We conclude schooling systems in developed countries would require substantial reform to reduce the detrimental effects of school composition on disadvantaged students.

KEYWORDS:

• School segregation
• socioeconomic composition
• moderators
• tracking
• public schools
• school effectiveness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael G. Sciffer

Michael G. Sciffer is a Ph.D. student at Murdoch University. His research interests are school segregation, compositional effects, interactions between social contexts and school effectiveness and the appropriate specification of statistical models.

Laura B. Perry

Laura B. Perry is a Professor of comparative education, sociology of education and education policy at Murdoch University. She conducts comparative research about educational disadvantage and inequalities, especially as they appear between schools and the systems, structures and policies that shape them. The aim of her research is to inform policy and practice for improving equity of educational opportunities, experiences and outcomes. Specific research interests include educational marketisation, school segregation and stratification, and social class and education.

Andrew McConney

Andrew McConney is an Honorary Research Fellow in educational research, evaluation and assessment at Murdoch University. Andrew’s interests include research on the effectiveness of teachers and teacher education; the evaluation of science, mathematics and other education-related programmes, typically using mixed-method approaches and, secondary analysis of large-scale international datasets to inform educational policy and practice.