This study estimates the effect of between-class ability grouping on Chilean secondary students' academic achievement. We rely on a structural feature of the school system: A considerable number of students who complete primary school must change schools to start their secondary education. Cardinality matching was performed to account for…

Studies regarding school composition have been highly influential in the design of policies. However, methodological and conceptual controversies have hindered the emergence of a consensus on the existence, size, and direction of peer effects. Drawing on four cohorts of Chilean students (n = 620,044), this work analyses the extent to which the…

The role of the school curriculum is in tension with two points: socializing the essential knowledge needed for life and reflecting the inequalities of society. The present study looks at the effectiveness of this socialization by comparing learner interests with the national curriculum. 442 10th grade students in Chile were divided into 4 groups…

This article focuses on Chilean students from vulnerable school contexts facing a standard national curriculum. It offers insights into students' voices, while uncovering what they want to learn and the drivers behind this decision. Semi-structured interviews revealed the power of the school socialisation process; for the majority of students,…

Disrupted schooling can heavily impact the amount of education pupils receive. Starting in early June of 2011 a huge social outburst of pupil protests, walk-outs, riots and school occupations called the Chilean Winter caused more than 8 million of lost school days. Within a matter of days, riots reached the national level with hundreds of…

Although teacher quality is usually signalled to be the most relevant school-level factor impacting students' learning, little is known about the relevance of teacher effects explaining educational inequality. By using a value-added model for a cohort of 10th graders, in this work we examine the socioeconomic gap in teacher effects across Chilean…

Students' academic motivation and their achievement is affected by the mindset that students hold about their own intelligence. The current study presents a unique nationally-representative dataset to study the relationship of Mindset and Achievement among different populations. With census data of Chilean 10th graders and their schools, the…

This paper investigates the validity of a national, standards-based teacher evaluation programme by examining the relationship between teachers' evaluation results and their students' learning progress. We used census achievement data that assessed the same cohort of students at the end of 8th and 10th grade. We applied multilevel modelling and…

In this dissertation, I address the issue of social inequalities in education and the role of the education system in confronting them. The project involves two main parts, one empirical and the other conceptual. In the first part--chapters 1 and 2--I address the practical dimension of how to reduce social inequalities in education by exploring…