Do school resources reduce socioeconomic achievement gap? Evidence from PISA 2015

Abstract

Despite the attention to the impact of school resources on student achievement, little is known about how the school effect differs by students’ socioeconomic backgrounds. Using PISA 2015, we find that privileged students receive much more academic benefits from high quality teachers than their disadvantaged peers do. Additionally, the level of economic development across countries explains the heterogenous effect of school resources. Our results suggest that the socioeconomic achievement gap could be worsened as a function of the difference in school resources across schools, particularly in non-OECD countries. We call for further studies on the heterogeneous effect of school resources with the viewpoint of educational equity.