Educational Inequalities in Latin America, 2012 PISA: Causes of Differences in School Performance between Public and Private Schools

Authors

Geovanny Castro AristizábalSalto de línea Pontificia Universidad Javeriana

Gregorio GiménezSalto de línea Domingo Pérez Ximénez de EmbúnSalto de línea Universidad de Zaragoza

DOI

10.4438/1988-592X-RE-2017-376-343

Abstract

This paper analyzes and explains the causes of the differences in school performance between public and private schools in Latin America. It uses information from the eight Latin American countries that participated in the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The estimations, two steps with instrumental variables, combined with the technique of Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, reveal that Uruguay and Brazil had the highest education gap and Colombia and Mexico the lowest. These differences are mainly explained by the observed component of the model. Specifically, the differences in individual characteristics explain the greatest proportion of gaps in performance, followed by family characteristics and school resources. In addition, the decomposition in the unobserved component suggests that students from private schools make better use of educational resources, both in their homes and in their schools.

Keywords

Academic achievement, public and private education, educational production function, instrumental variables, Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, PISA, Latin America