Socioeconomic effects on mexican students achievement, their educational opportunities and school trajectory

Abstract

In recent decades, large-scale academic achievement assessments have spread, and with them the number of educational studies examining the information collected. Through a documentary analysis, this article takes up a series of quantitative studies, to provide a view of how socioeconomic status affects Mexican students. Evidence of a meaningful and positive correlation between the student's socioeconomic level and academic achievement was found, with an exponential increase in achievement among the highest strata. Students’ socioeconomic status was combined within the classrooms, generating composition effects, which had a greater influence on academic achievement than the effects of the school itself. Additionally, Mexico was found to be one of the countries with heavier segregation within the school system, especially towards students from less favorable contexts, who had a greater probability of being grouped in highly marginalized schools. Likewise, these students had an even more deficient school trajectory, since half of them left the school system at fifteen years old. It concludes by highlighting the need to use the information from large-scale evaluations in favor of public policies that contribute to greater educational equity.