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Socioeconomic Inequality in Achievement

Conceptual Foundations and Empirical Measurement

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International Handbook of Comparative Large-Scale Studies in Education

Part of the book series: Springer International Handbooks of Education ((SIHE))

Abstract

The study of social inequality in student achievement is based on ideas of justice which are often not sufficiently explicated. Furthermore, there is a large set of measures used to quantify socioeconomic inequality in achievement. The first part of this chapter explains conceptual principles underlying measures of social inequality in achievement. For this purpose, we first introduce the concepts of adequacy and equality and discuss how social inequality extends them. In this respect, we emphasize the nature of education and its intrinsic, instrumental, individual, and societal value. The second part of the chapter discusses key measurement issues researchers deal with when studying achievement gaps between students of different socioeconomic status. We summarize research on commonly used indicators of socioeconomic background and compare children and parent reports. Different sets of statistical measures for continuous, categorical, single, and multiple background variables are reviewed, and the distinction between relative and absolute inequality measures is discussed with a focus on the implications for cross-national comparisons, and trend studies within countries over time.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IEA, Hamburg, Germany

    Rolf Strietholt & Andrés Strello

Authors
  1. Rolf Strietholt
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  2. Andrés Strello
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rolf Strietholt .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oslo, Blindern, Oslo, Norway

    Trude Nilsen

  2. IEA Hamburg, Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Agnes Stancel-Piątak

  3. University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Jan-Eric Gustafsson

Section Editor information

  1. University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Sigrid Blömeke

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Strietholt, R., Strello, A. (2021). Socioeconomic Inequality in Achievement. In: Nilsen, T., Stancel-Piątak, A., Gustafsson, JE. (eds) International Handbook of Comparative Large-Scale Studies in Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38298-8_11-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38298-8_11-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-38298-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-38298-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education

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