TY - JOUR
T1 - Equality of opportunity in educational achievement in the Middle East and North Africa
AU - Salehi-Isfahani, Djavad
AU - Hassine, Nadia Belhaj
AU - Assaad, Ragui
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2013, Springer Science+Business Media New York.
PY - 2014/11/7
Y1 - 2014/11/7
N2 - This paper is an empirical investigation of inequality of education opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We use student scores from tests administered by the international consortium Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) for a number of MENA countries and over time since 1999 to estimate the effect of circumstances children are born into on their academic achievement in science and mathematics. We find that inequality of opportunities explains a significant part of the inequality in educational achievements in most MENA countries, but there is ample heterogeneity. Family background variables are the most important determinants of inequality in achievement, followed by community characteristics. The results show that, despite great efforts in past decades to invest in free public education, most MENA countries are less opportunity equal in educational achievement than European countries, and several are less so than Latin America and the United States. From the variation in inequality of education opportunities across countries and over time we draw lessons on the influence of different education systems or changes in policy on equality of opportunity.
AB - This paper is an empirical investigation of inequality of education opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We use student scores from tests administered by the international consortium Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) for a number of MENA countries and over time since 1999 to estimate the effect of circumstances children are born into on their academic achievement in science and mathematics. We find that inequality of opportunities explains a significant part of the inequality in educational achievements in most MENA countries, but there is ample heterogeneity. Family background variables are the most important determinants of inequality in achievement, followed by community characteristics. The results show that, despite great efforts in past decades to invest in free public education, most MENA countries are less opportunity equal in educational achievement than European countries, and several are less so than Latin America and the United States. From the variation in inequality of education opportunities across countries and over time we draw lessons on the influence of different education systems or changes in policy on equality of opportunity.
KW - Education
KW - Equality of opportunity
KW - Middle East and North Africa
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84912017114&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84912017114&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10888-013-9263-6
DO - 10.1007/s10888-013-9263-6
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84912017114
SN - 1569-1721
VL - 12
SP - 489
EP - 515
JO - Journal of Economic Inequality
JF - Journal of Economic Inequality
IS - 4
ER -