Distribution Of Educational Opportunities Research Articles

The predictive influence of access factor on quality of secondary education in remote areas of Southwestern Nigeria

The dichotomy in the distribution of educational opportunities across African countries has become a recurring phenomenon between rural and urban communities. However, the remote and rural communities seem to be bearing the brunt of uneven access to quality education than cities. Thus, improving access to quality education in remote areas where educational advantages are scarce or not available remains a great challenge in Nigeria. This study, therefore, investigated the influence of access factor (AF: Physical Access-PA and Economic Access-EA) on Quality of Secondary Education (QSE) in remote areas of Southwestern Nigeria (RASN). The study was located within a post-positivist paradigm that incorporated the convergent parallel design. The multi-level mixed methods sampling technique was adopted in selecting 467 secondary school graduates. Six participants for the Key Informant Interviews comprised three principals and three senior officials from the Teaching Service Commission and Ministry of Education from three selected states in Southwestern Nigeria. Secondary School Graduate Aptitude Test (SSGAT) and Secondary School Graduate Access Questionnaire (SSGAQ) instruments were used for data collection. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Pearson Product Moment Correlation, while qualitative data were analyzed with content analysis. The access factor with physical access (67.3percent) and economic access (61.3percent) influenced QSE. The study concluded that enhancing access to QSE should be improved in RASN.

Inequality of Educational Opportunity and Time-Varying Circumstances: Longitudinal Evidence from Peru

This paper examines the extent to which characteristics that are beyond the control of children affect their educational outcomes. This is a matter of particular interest because the distribution of educational opportunities will shape future outcomes in other realms. While time-invariant circumstances have already been examined in the inequality of opportunity (IOp) literature, the role of time-varying circumstances has not yet been addressed. For the first time, this paper provides both lower and upper-bound estimates of IOp on learning achievement and assesses the impact of time-varying circumstances on upper-bound measures. It exploits a very rich and unusual longitudinal data set, the Young Lives Study, focusing on a cohort of children that has been followed for fifteen years, surveyed for the first time when they were around a year old. The results suggest that educational IOp is sizable and time-varying circumstances do not have a major impact on upper-bound measures using panel data.

A Comparison of Income Inequality in China and Russia and The Impact on Human Capital

Both China and Russia in economic transition are facing the risk of widening income gap and increasing inequality. This paper analyzes the degree of income inequality between the two countries from the perspectives of Gini coefficient, income quintile and decile. The income distribution system aimed at maintaining the stability has failed to curb the expansion of income inequality. Instead, it has resulted in an unfair distribution of educational opportunities and huge differences in family education investment, which increasingly affects the quality of education, especially the acquisition of high-quality higher education resources. So income inequality has become the main obstacle to the accumulation and development of human capital. Only by controlling income inequality within a reasonable range through a more inclusive system and giving individuals fair educational opportunities can the stock and quality of human capital be improved.

Seeing Merit as a Vehicle for Opportunity and Equity: Youth Respond to School Choice Policy

School choice policy is ubiquitous in urban school districts. Evidence suggests that it has not fully delivered on its proponents’ promises of equitable educational opportunity. While scholars and policymakers scrutinize data to determine school choice’s equity outcomes, little attention has been paid to how school choice policy directly influences youth understanding of educational equity and opportunity. This study therefore explores how youth who engage with school choice policy come to understand and act upon the distribution of educational opportunities, and the extent to which their understandings and actions vary by social identity, family resources, school resources and admissions outcomes. 36 youth, engaged in the high school choice process, participated in this study, which is guided by policy enactment theory. Across subgroups, participants overwhelmingly valued merit as the best principle by which to distribute educational opportunity. Alongside this near-universal embrace of merit and widespread participation in choice policy-required actions, those who accessed the highest-performing schools often did so by activating non-academic resources that required financial capital. These findings highlight a shared ritual that serves to instantiate and reinforce ideals of meritocracy. Findings inform our discussion of school choice policy’s educational equity and civic implications.

Validating the SEDA Measures of District Educational Opportunities via a Common Assessment.

The Stanford Educational Data Archive (SEDA) is the first data set to allow comparisons of district academic achievement and growth from Grades 3 to 8 across the United States, shining a light on the distribution of educational opportunities. This study describes a convergent validity analysis of the SEDA growth estimates in mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) by comparing the SEDA estimates against estimates derived from NWEA’s MAP Growth assessments. We find strong precision-adjusted correlations between growth estimates from SEDA and MAP Growth in math (.90) and ELA (.82). We also find that the discrepancy between the growth estimates in ELA is slightly more pronounced in high socioeconomic districts. Our analyses indicate a high degree of congruence between the SEDA estimates and estimates derived from the vertically scaled MAP Growth assessment. However, small systematic discrepancies imply that the SEDA growth estimates are less likely to generalize to estimates obtained through MAP Growth in some states.

A Map Is More Than Just a Graph: Geospatial Educational Research and the Importance of Historical Context

In this article, I discuss the promise of geospatial techniques for education policy research and how increased attention to the historical context of spatial data can enhance that work. While scholarship utilizing geographic information systems has added considerable breadth to our understanding of education policy, recent geospatial studies in education policy tended to neglect long-term, historical trends. Drawing on research in geography dealing with temporality, this article discusses the critical importance of historical context for spatial analysis. Then, to illustrate this point, I use the example of education policy research on school district boundaries to suggest the benefits of extending our temporal frame when conducting geospatial educational research. Greater attention to the historical context of geospatial data can (1) help policy researchers generate new research questions, (2) enhance their use of quantitative spatial analysis techniques, and (3) deepen their understanding of the underlying causes of contemporary patterns in the distribution of educational opportunity.

A Deconstructive Analysis on the Concept of “Education” and “Value of Education” in “Theory of Educational Justice”

가치 배분 문제는 철학분야에서 주류를 이루었던 공리주의에 대한 비판으로 Rawls가 공정으로서 정의론을 주장하였고, 그에 대하여 일군의 학자들이 비판하면서 진행되고 있다. 그들의 논의에서 “교육”의 가치 배분에 대해 간략히 언급한 것에 비하여 이돈희는 “교육정의론”이라는 자신의 저서를 통하여 “교육기회의 배분”에 대하여 자세히 논하였다. 본 연구는 이돈희의 “교육정의론”을 우리나라 “교육학계”에서 진행된 “교육의 가치”에 대한 담론들 중 전형적인 하나의 예로 가정하고 그 논의에 나타난 가치진술을 메타가치론적으로 선별하여 “교육”과 “교육의 가치” 개념에 대한 분석을 실시하였다. “교육정의론”에 진술된 “교육”의 개념을 검토한 결과, 첫째, 사회제도로서 “교육”, 둘째, 성장을 위한 “교육”, 셋째, 자기 모순적 “교육”, 넷째, 용병학문적 “교육”으로 분석되었으며, “교육의 가치” 개념을 검토한 결과, 제도의 가치, 사회의 가치, 정치의 가치, 종교의 가치, 교과의 가치로 분석되었다. 이상의 분석결과 “교육정의론”에서 사용된 “교육” 개념과 “교육의 가치” 개념은 그 개념적 오류로 인하여 교육학이라는 학문의 세계에도, 학교를 비롯한 일상세계에도 혼란을 가중시키고 있었다. 그 용어들이 참칭한 것을 해체하여 맥락에 맞게 개칭한 결과 보다 나은 의사소통이 가능하고 문제의 실체를 드러낼 수 있었다. 이 연구는 하나의 전형적인 사례이므로 “교육목표”, “교육평가”, “교육발전” 등의 “교육의 가치” 논의에 대한 추가적인 사례 연구가 필요하다. 또한 이러한 해체 이후에는 교육의 가치에 대한 개념과 용어의 재건이 필요하다.The issue of value allocation is mainly dealt with in philosophy. Rawls criticized utilitarianism and claimed justice as fairness. And some scholars are criticizing Rawls. They briefly discussed the value distribution of “education”. Lee Don-hee, however, discussed in detail the “distribution of educational opportunities” in the book “Educational Justice”. This study assumes Lee Don-hee s “Theory of Educational Justice” as a typical example of the discourse on “educational value” in Korean “academic world of educational research”. And the value statements presented in the discussion were selected modified metaethics to analyze the concepts of “education” and “value of education”. As a result of examining the concept of “education” stated in “Theory of Educational Justice”, it was analyzed as “education” as social system, growth, self- contradictory concept, and mercenary academic concept. And examining the concept of “value of education” stated in “Theory of Educational Justice”, it was analyzed as “value of education” as the value of institution, the value of society, the value of politics, the value of religion, and the value of subjects on a school curriculum. As a result of the above analysis, the concepts of “education” and “value of education” used in “Theory of Educational Justice” made confusing to the academic world of educational research and the everyday world including school. As the terms were deconstructed and changed according to context, we could communicate better and reveal the reality of the problem. Since this study is a typical case, further case studies on “value of education” such as “educational goal”, “educational evaluation”, “educational development” are needed. Also, after this deconstructing, it is necessary to reconstruct concepts and terms of educational value.

Allocation of Education Budget in Indonesia

Education is considered to have a very important role in promoting the civilization of a nation. Good quality education can encourage the creation of a quality society, creative and productive until finally able to achieve welfare. Through this national education system, the government should be able to ensure equal distribution of educational opportunities, as well as the relevance and efficiency of education management to face challenges in line with the changing demands of local, national and global life. The budget allocation system for education in Indonesia is heavily influenced by government policies. Education financing depends on the management of educational institutions, but budget allocations used must conform to national financing standards. Education in Indonesia, implemented in accordance with educational policies that regulate the national education system, as well as the allocation of 20% education funding obtained from the state budget and APBD.

Growing Wealth Gaps in Education

Prior research on trends in educational inequality has focused chiefly on changing gaps in educational attainment by family income or parental occupation. In contrast, this contribution provides the first assessment of trends in educational attainment by family wealth and suggests that we should be at least as concerned about growing wealth gaps in education. Despite overall growth in educational attainment and some signs of decreasing wealth gaps in high school attainment and college access, I find a large and rapidly increasing wealth gap in college attainment between cohorts born in the 1970s and 1980s, respectively. This growing wealth gap in higher educational attainment co-occurred with a rise in inequality in children's wealth backgrounds, although the analyses also suggest that the latter does not fully account for the former. Nevertheless, the results reported here raise concerns about the distribution of educational opportunity among today's children who grow up in a context of particularly extreme wealth inequality.

A perspective on education's importance for urban development

AbstractThe 21st century has been called the ‘age of the city’. The concentration of human activity is what makes cities such an important space of opportunity and challenge. This article views urban development challenges from an education perspective and argues that education must be viewed as an important intermediary for capitalising on the physical, intellectual and social capital available in cities. The distribution of educational opportunity within cities must be monitored to ensure that education plays a role in reducing and not exacerbating urban inequalities. Making sure that the city works for all requires improving how we plan cities and making urban planning processes more inclusive through knowledge‐based participation. There needs to be more appreciation of education's role in transformative urban development and stronger advocacy by education stakeholders to gain a seat in the circles that wield the most power in the urban futures debates.

Soziale Determinanten der subjektiven Gesundheit, Lebenszufriedenheit und krankheitsbedingten Schulfehltage von Heranwachsenden in Deutschland: Erste Ergebnisse des Nationalen Bildungspanels (NEPS)

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of social determinants on subjective health, life satisfaction and absence from school due to illness among adolescents in secondary schools, by using data from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS).Data was obtained from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). The sample included (n=5 790) 6th grade pupils in regular schools in 2011 (Starting Cohort 3, Wave 2). The socioeconomic background of adolescents was measured by pupils' school type as well as household income and parental education level. Family structure and gender were considered as additional social determinants in the analyses. Bivariate and multiple logistic regression techniques were applied.The results show that type of school and low household income were related to poor subjective health among students. Life satisfaction varied by family structure and school type. For absence from school due to illness, we found a weak association with students in low track schools.The results indicate that especially the school type had the most important impact on subjective health, life satisfaction and absence from school due to illness. Health promotion and preventive strategies should particularly focus on pupils in low track schools and in relation to socially unequal distribution of educational opportunities also on young people from households with low socioeconomic status.

Money, Power, Equity and Higher Education

In current issue of the Journal of Medical Education, Afshar in the Editorial “The Role of Private Sector in Higher Education; From Quantity and Quality to Access and Social Justice” proposed the importance of justice and quality. (1) It seems that there are some differences between two types of private sector in higher education. One type of private financial support in higher education comes purely from private sector without any contribution of public sector. The second type of private finance in the higher education especially the type which has grown recently in Iranian higher education is a type of combination between public higher education and private sector the so called international branch of the university till recent years, and nowadays called selfgoverning campus of the university. (2) In this type of private contribution to public higher education those who have no or little money must pass very hard national examination to be accepted in the university, and those who can pay the tuition fee could enter to the best schools of that university without the exam (in the first year of the project) or by loose standards or lower cut off scores. Actually, this is an instance of the double standards. One of the elements of being equitable and avoiding discrimination is to prevent undue achievement by the owners of the power such as owners of political, religious, economic, or military power, and to avoid any distinction according to race, colour, sex, language, and etc. (3) In this type of private money absorption in the higher education, while the others have no extra way to enter to the university that would lead to achievement of scientific power, the owners of the economic powers’ daughters and sons could have a special chance to achieve scientific power by the power of their parents, and there is a different criterion to enter the university based on non-scientific differences. In such situation growing student movements against commercialism of knowledge and education which is contrary to their culture and also against fair distribution of educational opportunities is probable. (4-6) In this condition the pressure of stigma on the student with lower scores in the entrance and the other examinations is not ethically acceptable either. The other problem of this type of private financial support in higher education is the matter of distinguishing the clear border between public sector incomes regarding the private one. Some similar studies in combining public and private healthcare services showed that it is the private sector that finally has income from the public one contrary to the presuppositions. (7) From another view supporters of self-governing branch (previously called international branch, while it doesn’t have real international students, faculty members or staffs) could state some benefits for private contribution to public sector higher education such as taking financial resources from private to the public, preventing capital leakage of rich people in the country to abroad. More over, It is said that “it is better to spend your money to attain knowledge and degree comparing with those who spend their talents and academic knowledge and degree to attain money in an unethical way”; namely if rich persons tend to spend their money to improve their family members knowledge and to help the scientific sector of the public, it would be appreciated as a good practice and act. on the other hand, could see some talent students or graduates who committed immoral practices such as a case in which a doctor explicitly states to the laboratory or other Para clinics colleague: “how much do I get if I send you patients?” (8) Conclusion: Entering best fields of best universities by the lower cut off scores comparing other similar applicant merely because of parents’ economic status could consider as an exemplary of unequal opportunity for equal ones. Helping public science sector of the society via paid tuitions may diminishes the ugliness of injustice, however public sector incomes clearance is essential to make public benefit claims real and documented. In the other hand stigmatization of the student with lower scores after their entrance to the university also seems to be unethical.

<em>Josephs without Pharaohs: The Du Boisian Framework for the Sociology of Education</em>

INTRODUCTIONBlacks are generally disadvantaged at both the macro and micro levels of U.S. society. At the macro level, Blacks have historically suffered from low rates of social mobility. This holds whether mobility is measured as educational attainment (Kao & Thompson, 2003), residential mobility (Massey & Denton, 1993), or wealth accumulation (Oliver & Shapiro, 2006). At the micro level, Black students in U.S. schools are more likely than students from other backgrounds to have negative interactions with peers, teachers, and other school authority figures (Solorzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000). Both levels of inequality contribute to racial disparities in educational experiences and outcomes (Diamond, 2006). How should sociologists of education conceptualize these dual processes?As early as 1898, Du Bois argued that Blacks' micro level educational realities-number and condition of schools, illiteracy rates, and being unwelcome in schools and colleges with Whites - were inseparable from a macro level peculiar environment (Du Bois, 1898). Denials of Black humanity, anti-Black discrimination, fear of large scale Black socioeconomic mobility, and resistance to widespread educational opportunities for Blacks characterized this environment. Paradoxically, it would take education for Blacks to fully recognize the extent of their oppression. Because Du Bois articulated the interplay between education and oppression in this way, his writings and speeches on education reveal an innovative conceptualization of the macro-micro link. His work, therefore, also presents one resolution to the macro-micro issue within the sociology of education (Hammersley, 1984; Mehan, 1992; O'Connor, Lewis, & Mueller, 2007; Shilling, 1992; Willmott, 1999).In this article, the author outlines a Du Boisian framework for the sociology of education. The framework is based on Du Bois's numerous writings and speeches about the education of Black students. Also considered are sections of his major works (e.g., The Souls of Black Folk, 1994) that touch on education. The author uses Du Bois's work as qualitative data from which to generate a grounded theoretical framework (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Doing so demonstrates one way to connect Du Bois's broader educational philosophy to the investigation of specific educational realities facing Black students today. Du Bois is quoted at length whenever possible to enter his own words into the lexicon of the sociology of education, from which he currently remains largely absent.The Du Boisian framework's central problematic is the macro-micro feedback loop between racial inequalities in the U.S. political economy (Marable, 2000) and discriminatory treatment of Black students in schools (see Figure 1). The feedback loop perpetuates multigenerational educational inequality. That is, discriminatory treatment of Black students in schools is made possible by, and reinforces for another generation, racial inequalities in political economy. Du Bois's theoretical points of view on education will be identified as neo-Marxism (Bowles & Gintis, 1972, 2002, 2013) at the macro level and structuration theory (Giddens, 1984) at the micro level. Given the framework's central problematic of the macro-micro feedback loop, it is not surprising that both points of view focus on the bidirectional relationship between individuals and society, or agents and structures.The Du Boisian framework reconceptualizes issues currently facing Black students, who are the focus of much sociological and educational research (see O'Connor, Lewis, & Mueller, 2007). Issues are seen as ways in which political economic inequalities affect another generation of Black youth through or by way of the institution of schooling. This new intuition applies both within and between schools. Individual schools, even racially integrated ones, can be internally organized on the basis of race. Furthermore, the distribution of educational opportunity between schools and neighborhoods in the U. …

Towards a more Equitable Distribution of Educational Opportunities: What is the Impact of the Preferential Subsidy Policy on the Achievement Level of the most Vulnerable Students in Chile?

Towards a more Equitable Distribution of Educational Opportunities: What is the Impact of the Preferential Subsidy Policy on the Achievement Level of the most Vulnerable Students in Chile?

Unequal Educational Transitions in Estonia

ABSTRACTThe aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of social origin on the transition from basic to secondary education and from secondary to tertiary education, comparing four cohorts born between 1935 and 1984. The analysis focuses on testing four hypotheses, which are mainly derived from the theses of maximally maintained inequality, effectively maintained inequality and the changes in the Estonian education system. The analysis is based on data from the Estonian Social Survey, 2004–2005, which gathered retrospective information about the educational transitions of respondents and their social origins. The findings showed the persistent inequality in the transition to secondary education during the socialist period, despite the expansion of secondary education in the 1960s and 1970s. However, as a result of declining enrolments in the 1990s, social inequality in the transition probabilities to secondary education increased significantly. We found that social origin had a strong impact on the transition to higher education, but surprisingly this effect did not change when comparing cohorts. We can also point out that the distribution of educational opportunity is related more to the rules that govern educational selection than to the expansion of the educational system per se.

Desigualdades educacionais em contextos urbanos: um estudo da geografia de oportunidades educacionais na cidade do Rio de Janeiro

O objetivo do trabalho é trazer uma contribuição teórica dos estudos da sociologia urbana, bem como a contribuição metodológica das análises espaciais (georreferenciamento), para analisar as desigualdades educacionais em grandes centros urbanos. Ao integrar a dimensão das desigualdades educacionais às dinâmicas de segregação residencial desses centros, traz questões até então subdimensionadas nos estudos sobre desigualdades educacionais. Como estratégia analítica, selecionamos a cidade do Rio de Janeiro para exemplificar as potencialidades da abordagem teórico-metodológica adotada. As análises reuniram informações de diferentes bases de dados, tais como Prova Brasil (2011) e Censo Escolar (2011). Por fim, o artigo discute experiências recentes de políticas educacionais que utilizam instrumentos de geoprocessamento e/ou que focalizam escolas em territórios vulneráveis e suas consequências para distribuição de oportunidades educacionais.

Assessing the Equity and Equality of Distribution of Public Pre-University Education Opportunities in Egypt

The research seeks to consolidate the range of theoretical concepts in the field of equitable distribution of educational opportunities, and apply them to Egypt. The author used statistical methods to measure and analyze the pattern of distribution of educational opportunities in the public pre-university education in Egypt. It emphasizes on the fact that the attainment of equitable distribution of educational opportunities will be accompanied by an improvement in the structure of human capital, and the qualitative and quantitative improvement in the structure of supply in the labor market and betters income distribution.

Back to the Future: A Critique of Response to Intervention's Social Justice Views

The emergence of Response to Intervention (RTI) anticipates a different future for all students, particularly learners from racial minority backgrounds and students with disabilities. RTI is being widely adopted in school districts as a viable alternative to enhance learning opportunities; hence, some education scholars argue it promises a much-needed response to longstanding injustices for underserved students. RTI aims to address injustices in the distribution of educational opportunities and recognition of underserved groups of students. The authors identify the underlying views of social justice that permeate RTI and conclude with a closer look at RTI's justice claims embedded in some implementation procedures. They propose it is important to revisit the anticipated future promised by RTI through the refinement of the social justice perspectives used in this literature.

Famílias e acesso diferenciado a escolas públicas prestigiadas: um estudo de caso

Este trabalho traz resultados de uma pesquisa realizada em escolas municipais da cidade do Rio de Janeiro que desfrutam de reputações contrapostas. Foram realizadas observações, entrevistas e surveys em três pares de escolas, em regiões distintas da cida de, segundo critério de demanda por parte da população e de prestígio diante da buro cracia educacional. A pesquisa busca conhecer mecanismos pelos quais a reputação das escolas se constrói e mantém, com base na percepção de que essa reputação é relevante na distribuição de oportunidades escolares e se associa intimamente a fatores de estratificação social. Hierarquias são destacadas em um ambiente que é tradicionalmente pensado como homogêneo: as escolas "comuns" das redes públicas. A literatura pertinente é trazida, especialmente aquela que trata de escolhas escolares e de diferenciação entre e intraescolas. Neste artigo, foram selecionados resultados que destacam a força dos con dicionantes familiares na compreensão do fenômeno em foco.

Profiling learners and teachers at remote rural secondary schools: a case study

The academic achievements of learners at remote rural secondary schools in developing countries like Zimbabwe and South Africa tend to be low compared to those who attend urban schools. Acknowledging that numerous factors are likely to influence learners’ academic achievement in general, this study focused on two factors, which have been identified by research as particularly significant, namely the specific profile of the rural school learner, as well as the profile of the teacher teaching at these rural schools. Although our actual investigation was in the form of a case study done at only two remote rural secondary schools in Zimbabwe, we believe that these schools resemble most remote rural secondary schools in developing countries, also in South Africa. Based on our findings, we contend that the poor academic performance of learners at these two remote rural schools can be related to the specific profiles of the learners who attend these schools, as well as the profiles of teachers teaching at these schools. Although our investigation did not reveal significant new insights, it once again emphasised the continuation of the dilemma of bimodal distribution of education opportunities to the detriment of (mainly black) learners in remote rural areas. Until such time that this problem is successfully addressed, it needs to remain on the education agenda.