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on Education |
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Issue of 2010‒10‒02
thirteen papers chosen by Joao Carlos Correia Leitao University of Beira Interior and Technical University of Lisbon |
| By: | Yvette Grelet (CEREQ - Centre d'études et de recherches sur les qualifications - Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche - ministère de l'Emploi, cohésion sociale et logement, ESO - Espaces et Sociétés - CNRS : UMR6590 - Université de Caen - Université d'Angers - Université du Maine - Université de Nantes - Université Rennes 2 - Haute Bretagne); Claudine Romani (CEREQ - Centre d'études et de recherches sur les qualifications - Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche - ministère de l'Emploi, cohésion sociale et logement); Joaquim Timoteo (CEREQ - Centre d'études et de recherches sur les qualifications - Ministère de l'Education nationale, de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche - ministère de l'Emploi, cohésion sociale et logement, LEO - Laboratoire d'économie d'Orleans - CNRS : UMR6221 - Université d'Orléans, LABORATOIRE D'ECONOMIE D'ORLéANS éQUIPE TEOS - Travail Emploi Organisations Savoirs - CNRS : UMR6621) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to compare the pathways in education and the access to employment of young French graduates from the two principal tertiary short vocational tracks: the Advanced Technical Courses (STS ) and the Technological University Institutes (IUT). The originality of this comparison lies in its re-examination of these educational pathways in the light of individual trajectories onto the labour market, and the perspectives that emerge. Not only course changes, dropouts or academic failures but also successfully completed studies are viewed here as elements in the increasing complexity of training pathways, based on which career guidance upstream and its effect on the transition options from education to employment downstream will be examined. The comparison of pathways during and following higher education revolves around three key questions: - What similarities and differences can be observed between the careers strategies and the academic profiles of students following IUT and STS tracks? - What progress is made by enrolees to these tracks during higher education and what determining factors explain the different structures? - In what ways do these differentiated educational pathways result in more or less effective access into the labour market? |
| Date: | 2010–09–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00520025_v1&r=edu |
| By: | Liam Delaney (University College Dublin); Martin Ryan (University College Dublin); Colm Harmon (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses novel measures of individual differences that produce new insights about student inputs into the (higher) education production function. The inputs examined are lecture attendance and additional study-hours. The data were collected through a web-survey that the authors designed. The analysis includes the following measures: willingness to take risks, consideration of future consequences and non-cognitive ability traits. Besides age, gender and year of study, the main determinants of lecture attendance and additional study-hours are attitude to risk, future-orientation and conscientiousness. In addition, future-orientation, and in particular conscientiousness, determine lecture attendance to a greater extent than they determine additional study. Finally, we show that family income and financial transfers (from both parents and the state) do not determine any educational input. This study suggests that non-cognitive abilities may be more important than financial constraints in the determination of inputs related to educational production functions. |
| Keywords: | higher education, education inputs, lecture attendance, hours of study, future-orientation, attitude to risk, non-cognitive ability, conscientiousness |
| Date: | 2010–09–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201025&r=edu |
| By: | Card, David; Dooley, Martin; Payne, Abigail |
| Abstract: | The province of Ontario has two publicly funded school systems: secular schools (known as public schools) that are open to all students, and separate schools that are limited to children with Catholic backgrounds. A simple model of inter-system competition predicts that incentives for effort are higher in areas where there are more Catholic families who are relatively uncommitted to one system or the other. We measure the willingness of Catholic families to switch systems by studying the effect of school openings on enrollment at nearby schools in the competing system. The results suggest that families in rapidly growing areas have the weakest attachment to a particular system. We then relate student test score gains between 3rd and 6th grade to measures of potential cross-system competition. We find that competition for Catholic students has a significant effect on test outcomes in both systems, particularly in fast-growing areas. Our estimates imply that expanding competition to all students would raise average test scores in 6th grade by 6-8% of a standard deviation. |
| Keywords: | School Competition, School Choice, Student Performance |
| JEL: | I20 I21 H41 |
| Date: | 2010–09–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2010-28&r=edu |
| By: | Stephen C. Smith; M. Shahe Emran (Department of Economics/Institute for International Economic Policy, George Washington University); Fenohasina Maret (Department of Economics, George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | Using household data from Vietnam, we provide evidence on the causal effects of education on freedom of spouse choice. We use war disruptions and spatial indicators of schooling supply as instruments. The point estimates indicate that a year of additional schooling reduces the probability of an arranged marriage by about 14 percentage points for an individual with 8 years of schooling. We also estimate bounds that do not rely on the exact exclusion restrictions (lower bound is 6-7 percentage points). The impact of education is strong for women, but much weaker for men. |
| Keywords: | Arranged Marriage, Education, Schooling, Freedom of choice, Development, Vietnam, Social Interactions |
| JEL: | I2 O12 D1 J12 |
| Date: | 2009–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2009-15&r=edu |
| By: | Leonard C. Smith; Vimal Ranchhod |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the impact of educational interventions made in the first-and second-year microeconomics courses on academic development students' final mark in the second-year course. It also addresses issues of methodology, specification, and statistical analysis with respect to other studies in the field. The results suggest that the educational interventions in the first year had a positive impact on the academic performance of the academic development cohort,relative to the mainstream cohort for the first period (2000-2002). The results also suggest that the educational interventions introduced in the second period (2003-2005), in the form of voluntary workshops for the academic development cohort, improved the academic performance of this cohort relative to that of mainstream students. |
| Keywords: | academic development, academic performance, economic education, educational interventions, microeconomics, multivariate analysis, propensity score matching, South Africa |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:186&r=edu |
| By: | Liam Delaney (UCD Geary Institute, University College Dublin, Ireland); Colm Harmon (UCD Geary Institute, University College Dublin, Ireland); Cathy Remond (UCD Geary Institute, University College Dublin, Ireland) |
| Abstract: | Despite the increasing coverage and prevalence of equality legislation and the general alignment of key determining characteristics such as educational attainment, gender differentials continue to persist in labour market outcomes, including earnings. Recently, evidence has been found supporting the role of typically unobserved non-cognitive factors in explaining these gender differentials. We contribute to this literature by testing whether gender gaps in the earnings expectations of a representative group of Irish university students are explained by simultaneously controlling for gender heterogeneity across a wide array of cognitive and noncognitive factors. Non-cognitive factors were found to play a significant role in explaining the gender gap, however, gender differentials persist even after controlling for an extensive range of cognitive and non-cognitive factors. Nearly three-quarters of the short run and two-thirds of the long run differential could not be explained. |
| Keywords: | Gender, Education, Inequality, Discrimination, Earnings Expectations. |
| JEL: | C10 C11 C23 L11 L65 |
| Date: | 2010–09–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucd:wpaper:201038&r=edu |
| By: | Donna K. Ginther (Department of Economics, The University of Kansas) |
| Abstract: | Currently, the U.S. population is undergoing major racial and ethnic demographic shifts that could affect the pool of individuals interested in pursuing a career in biomedical research. To achieve its mission of improving health, the National Institutes of Health must recruit and train outstanding individuals for the biomedical workforce. In this study, we examined the educational transition rates in the biomedical sciences by gender, race, and ethnicity, from high school to academic career outcomes. Using a number of educational databases, we investigated gender and racial/ethnic representation at typical educational and career milestones en route to faculty careers in biomedicine. We then employed multivariate regression methods to examine faculty career outcomes, using the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Doctorate Recipients. We find that while transitions between milestones are distinctive by gender and race/ethnicity, the transitions between high school and college and between college and graduate school are critical points at which underrepresented minorities are lost from the biomedical pipeline, suggesting some specific targets for policy intervention. |
| Keywords: | Scientific labor force, race, gender, diversity, career outcomes, science policy. |
| JEL: | J4 J71 |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kan:wpaper:201006&r=edu |
| By: | Rebecca Allen; Simon Burgess; Leigh McKenna |
| Abstract: | We analyse the initial impact of a major school admission reform in Brighton and Hove. The new system incorporated a lottery for oversubscribed places and new catchment areas. We examine the post-reform changes in school composition. We locate the major winners and losers in terms of the quality of school attended. We match similar cities and conduct a difference-in-difference analysis of the policy change. We see no significant change in student sorting: if anything, the point estimates suggest a rise in socio-economic segregation. We do see a significant weakening of the dependence of school attended on student’s prior attainment. |
| Keywords: | school lottery, segregation, school admissions reforms |
| JEL: | I20 I28 |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:cmpowp:10/244&r=edu |
| By: | Raquel Rangel de Meireles Guimarães (Cedeplar-UFMG); Eduardo Luiz Gonçalves Rios-Neto (Cedeplar-UFMG) |
| Abstract: | This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the inequality of educational opportunities in Brazil, identifying the magnitude of the relationships between social origins and the probability of progression on the educational scale between 1986 and 2008. We apply the Grade Progression Probability concept (RIOS-NETO, 2004) on the individual level through the estimation of school transitions logistic model. We show that men have lower chances of school progression, as well as black, residents in rural areas and the non-residents in metropolitan areas, and that those differences are not neutral with respect to the transition considered: we found that those differentials tend to decrease along the educational career. Important evidence was that, in the case of race, and situation/area of residence, there was a reduction in the advantage of whites or people with residence in metropolitan or urban areas. Also we tested if the two hypothesis proposed by Mare (1980) to the educational stratification are valid to Brazil. The first one, which states that the effect of the social origins decreases along the educational trajectory, could be not be corroborated by none of the measures employed (education, sex, race and occupation of the head of the family; number of siblings). Regarding the second hypothesis, Mare states that the educational expansion between two periods would reduce the inequality of educational opportunities in a given grade. Overall, we show that this hypothesis is corroborated when the education and occupational status of the family’s head is considered on the first school transitions between 1986 and 2008. We can conclude, therefore, that the educational policies that promoted the universal access on the education system and on the elementary level were effective on reducing inequality of educational opportunities, measured by our Proxy variables. |
| Keywords: | Age-Period-Cohort Models, Intrinsec Estimator, Grade Progression Probability |
| JEL: | Y80 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td385&r=edu |
| By: | Manzi, Jorge; San Martin, Ernesto; Van Bellegem, Sébastien |
| Abstract: | Value-added analysis is a common tool in analysing school performances. In this paper, we analyse the SIMCE panel data which provides individual scores of about 200,000 students in Chile, and whose aim is to rank schools according to their educational achievement. Based on the data collection procedure and on empirical evidences, we argue that the exogeneity of some covariates is questionable. This means that a nonvanishing correlation appears between the school-specific effect and some covariates. We show the impact of this phenomenon on the calculation of the value-added and on the ranking, and provide an estimation method that is based on instrumental variables in order to correct the bias of endogeneity. Revisiting the definition of the value-added, we propose a new calculation robust to endogeneity that we illustrate on the SIMCE data. |
| Date: | 2010–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:23126&r=edu |
| By: | Leonard Smith (School of Economics, University of Cape Town); Vimal Ranchhod (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town; School of Economics, University of Cape Town) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the impact of educational interventions made in the first- and second-year microeconomics courses on academic development students’ final mark in the second-year course. It also addresses issues of methodology, specification, and statistical analysis with respect to other studies in the field. The results suggest that the educational interventions in the first-year had a positive impact on the academic performance of the academic development cohort, relative to the mainstream cohort for the first period (2000-2002). The results also suggest that the educational interventions introduced in the second period (2003-2005), in the form of voluntary workshops for the academic development cohort, also improved the academic performance of this cohort relative to that of mainstream students. |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ldr:wpaper:46&r=edu |
| By: | Raquel Rangel de Meireles Guimarães (Cedeplar-UFMG); Eduardo Luiz Gonçalves Rios-Neto (Cedeplar-UFMG); Patrícia Silva Ferreira Pimenta (FAFICH/UFMG); Thiago de Azevedo Moraes (FAFICH/UFMG) |
| Abstract: | This article traces evidences of the evolution of some school efficiency indicators in Brazil, namely: Attendance Rate, Gross Schooling Rate, Net Schooling Rate; Age-Grade distortion rate. Our analysis permeates nearly three decades of educational policies in Brazil, by the computation of the indicators to the historical series of PNAD microdata. Some indicators were stratified by population subgroups, according to the following subgroups: sex, race and quantiles of the per head family income. The results show that the educational policies implemented in Brazil, which were more incisive in the Elementary level, were well succeeded in terms of increasing and promoting equal access and also reducing grade distortion. Nevertheless, in the high school and college, there was a favorable evolution, but in a lower baseline and with restrictions in the access of some population. |
| Keywords: | Educational indicators, Educational Policies, Educational Stratification |
| JEL: | Y80 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cdp:texdis:td386&r=edu |
| By: | Orazio Attanasio (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London); Costas Meghir (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London); Ana Santiago (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Inter-American Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | <p><p><p>In this paper we use an economic model to analyse data from a major social experiment, namely PROGRESA in Mexico, and to evaluate its impact on school participation. In the process we also show the usefulness of using experimental data to estimate a structural economic model. The evaluation sample includes data from villages where the program was implemented and where it was not. The allocation was randomised for evaluation purposes. We estimate a structural model of education choices and argue that without such a framework it is impossible to evaluate the effect of the program and, especially, possible changes to its structure. We also argue that the randomized component of the data allows us to identify a more flexible model that is better suited to evaluate the program. We find that the program has a positive effect on the enrollment of children, especially after primary school; this result is well replicated by the parsimonious structural model. We also find that a revenue neutral change in the program that would increase the grant for secondary school children while eliminating for the primary school children would have a substantially larger effect on enrollment of the latter, while having minor effects on the former.</p></p></p> |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:10/14&r=edu |