CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2010
| Author | Horn, Daniel |
|---|---|
| Title | Essays on educational institutions and inequality of opportunity |
| Summary | This thesis looks at the causes and consequences of the selective educational institutions on the inequality of opportunity in general, and the effects of the early selective tracks in Hungary and the possible reasons of their evolution, in particular. The first chapter reviews the most recent literature on educational institutions and their link to the inequality of opportunity. The most unambiguous finding of the literature is that selective educational institutions associate strongly with inequality. In the second chapter I use the PISA 2003 data to test the association of educational institutions with the inequality of opportunity and the effectiveness. Despite the small number of countries (29 OECD countries), the results are policy relevant. Of them the most important is that earlier age of selection into different school-types and the number of school-types are significantly associated with higher inequality of opportunity. The third chapter looks at the case of Hungary where early selection replaced the more comprehensive school system, a rare development in international perspective. The early selective tracks cream-skim the best students at age 10 and at age 12 instead of the official age 14. Using a unique panel dataset I show that early selective tracks are more beneficial for higher status families. These tracks have a higher value-added in reading and mathematical literacy and in continuing studies in tertiary education. Their student composition is of higher status and higher skilled students. Thus they lead to an increase in the inequality of opportunities. Weaker tests show that while students’ of early selective tracks gain, those left in general tracks loose. The last chapter looks at the evolution of the current Hungarian system, including the early selective tracks, and it tries to answer the question: why and how such a system could evolve. I argue that three factors were important: (1) historical conditions (2) decentralization and (3) democracy. The two historical conditions are the memory of the elite 8-year-long academic schools, the gimnáziums, and the decentralized administrative structure of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. As a result of democratization and decentralization after the post-communist transition, higher status people could shape local policies easier than before, which led to the proliferation of the early selective tracks and to the increasing selectivity of the education system. In addition, the two main political powers emerging at the post-communist transition, the conservatives and the liberals, have both supported the establishment of early selective tracks on different ideological grounds, and this quasi compromise was implicitly approved by the socialists. |
| Supervisor | Kezdi, Gabor |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2010/pphhod01.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University