Equality of Opportunity in Education: A Case Study of Chile and Norway

Garces-Voisenat, Juan-Pedro (2015): Equality of Opportunity in Education: A Case Study of Chile and Norway.

Abstract

One of the most important determinants of the distribution of income and life opportunities is education. Increasing levels of formal schooling have contributed to raise standards of living and eradicate extreme poverty worldwide in recent decades. However, inequality in the distribution of income –which is the single most important indicator of relative access to material well-being- remains stubbornly high in most regions of the world. In this paper, I focus on two countries, Chile and Norway, which have very different educational systems, and follow the same analytical methodology of Schütz et al (2008) to detect differences in equality of opportunity between the two countries. In a slight variation, the family-background effect here is represented by a larger number of variables –including household income-, in order to pinpoint the specific characteristics that it comprises in each country. Surprisingly, I find that the family-background effect is stronger in Norway than in Chile, which would denote a potential higher inequality. However the higher achievement inequality in Chile is determined by other factors, which need urgent reform.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Chile, Norway, education, inequality, equality of opportunity
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I24 - Education and Inequality; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I2 - Education and Research Institutions > I25 - Education and Economic Development; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O15 - Human Resources ; Human Development ; Income Distribution ; Migration

References

Amar, Mauricio (2007). Equidad, calidad y derecho a la educación en Chile. Study Series Library of Congress Chile, 9

Barro, Robert and Jong-Wha Lee (2010). A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950-2010. Journal of Development Economics, 104, 184-198

Benaabdelaali, Wail, Saïd Hanchane, and Abdelak Kamal (2012). Chapter 13 Educational Inequality in the World, 1950-2010: Estimates from a new dataset, in John Bishop, Rafael Salas (eds), Inequality, Mobility and Segregation: Essays in Honor of Jacques Silber. Bingley, England: Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Carvalho, Márcia, Luis Fernando Gamboa and Fábio Waltenberg (2012). Equality of educational opportunity employing PISA data: Taking both achievement and access into account. Working Papers Universidad del Rosario, 130

Chomsky, Noam (2012). How the World Works. London: Penguin

Coleman, James (1968). Equality of educational opportunity. Equity and excellence in education, 6(5), 19-28

Drago, José Luis, and Ricardo Paredes (2011). The quality gap in Chile’s education system. Cepal Review, 104

Garces, Juan-Pedro (2009). The Quality of Private and Public Education: The case of Chile. Journal of Knowledge Globalization, 2(2)

Klingstedt, Stig (2001). Equality in education and its application by the court. European Journal for Education Law and Policy 5, 127-131

Krugman, Paul (2007). The Conscience of a Liberal. New York: Norton

Mizala, Alejandra and Pilar Romaguera (2002). Equity and Educational Performance Economia LACEA, 2(2)

Núñez, Javier and Leslie Miranda (2007). Recent findings on intergenerational income and educational mobility in Chile. Working Papers University of Chile, Department of Economics, wp244

Parry, Taryn Rounds (1997), Achieving balance in decentralization: a case study of education decentralization in Chile. World Development, 25(2)

Piketty, Thomas (2013). Le capital au XXIe siècle. Paris: Seuil

Ramos, Joseph, David Coble, Ricardo Elfernan and Claudia Soto (2013). The impact of cognitive skills on professional salaries in an emerging economy, Chile. The Developing Economies, 21 (1)

Reich, Robert (2012). Beyond Outrage. New York: Random House

Schütz, Gabriela, Heinrich Ursprung and Ludger Wößmann (2008). Education Policy and Equality of Opportunity. Kyklos, 61(2), 279-308

Stiglitz, Joseph (2012). The Price of Inequality. New York: Norton

Thomas, Vinod, Yan Wang and Xibo Fan (2000). Measuring Education Inequality: Gini Coefficients of Education. World Bank Policy Research Working Papers, 2525

Torche, Florencia (2005). Privatization Reform and Inequality of Educational Opportunity: The case of Chile. Sociology of Education, 78