Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name:  Contini, Dalit
Author-Email: dalit.contini@unito.it
Author-Name: Cugnata, Federica 
Author-Email: federica.cugnata@unisr.it
Author-Workplace-Name: University of Turin
Author-Workplace-Homepage: http://www.est.unito.it/
Title: Learning inequalities between primary and secondary school. Difference-in-difference with international assessments
Abstract: Evaluating the effect of institutional features by exploiting cross-country variability with crosssectional
data is difficult. Difference-in-difference strategies are sometimes employed to reach
identification. In this paper, we discuss the difference-in-difference strategies adopted in the literature
to evaluate the effect of early tracking on learning inequalities using surveys administered to children
of different grades. In their seminal paper: “Does educational tracking affect performance and
inequality? Differences-in-differences evidence across countries” Economic Journal (2006),
Hanushek, and Woessmann analyze the effect of early tracking on inequalities with two-step analysis.
Other scholars, instead, focus on the social background regression coefficient, using individual-level
models applied to pooled data from all countries. We demonstrate that since test scores are measured
on different scales at different surveys, pooled data strategies may yield to completely uninformative
results. Against this background, we use data on reading literacy in PIRLS 2006 and PISA 2012 and
carry out two-step difference-in-difference analyses on the effect of early tracking on social
background learning inequalities.
Length: 35 pages
Creation-Date: 2016-04
File-URL: http://www.est.unito.it/do/home.pl/Download?doc=/allegati/wp2016dip/wp_7_2016.pdf
File-Format: Application/PDF
Handle: RePEc:uto:dipeco:201607