Challenges to quality and equity in educational performance for Latin America, a PISA 2012 perspective

Abstract

This paper analyses the educational performance of eight PISA 2012 Latin American countries relative to the OECD focusing on equity in the distribution of outcomes. We consider first the results of those countries in terms of the shares of high and low performing students. Next we study how much those performances depend on the students’ family background. We use the data on mathematical competencies in PISA 2012 and compare the results of those students coming from disadvantaged and advantaged families, identified with those in the first and fourth quartiles of the distribution of the index of Economic and Socio-Cultural Status. The main results of this study are: (i) The differences in the educational systems between Latin American countries and the OECD are much larger than suggested by country rankings based on mean performance. (ii) The share of Latin American students exhibiting high performance is extremely thin, particularly among disadvantaged students, whereas low performance is pervasive across all students regardless of family background. (ii) Socio-economic conditions strongly determine high performance, much more than in the OECD.