Investment in schools outweighs local disadvantage
Equal pay is not the only obstacle women face in the labour market.
Students who attend good, well-funded schools can overcome the disadvantage of living in low socioeconomic neighbourhoods, a new report shows.
Researchers from Monash and Deakin universities studied education and training outcomes for students living in areas of social advantage and compared them with those from neighbourhoods with low socioeconomic status.
Their report focused on four neighbourhood characteristics’ –socioeconomic status, residential stability, household type and ethnic diversity – effect on outcomes for 15, 17 and 19-year-olds.
Associate Professor Chandra Shah from the Centre for Economics of Education and Training said the study found these neighbourhood characteristics had little impact on how students progressed once the effects of the schools attended by these students were taken into account.
“Two students attending the same school, with similar individual characteristics and parental background, but living in different neighbourhoods are unlikely to have different outcomes”, Associate Professor Shah said.
The results suggest that any positive effect from living in an advantaged area appears to work through the fact that these areas generally have ‘better’ schools, which promote further education and training.
An implication of this is that better distribution of resources across schools has the potential to reduce inequalities in student outcomes.
“Changing the ways principals and teachers are allocated to schools and ensuring a school’s student intake is not disadvantaged through the selection practices of other schools could also help to reduce disparity in student outcomes,” Associate Professor Shah said.
"Students’ attitude to schooling, application to school work and aspiration for further study when they were 15 years-of-age are important predictors of their progress through school and post-school destinations.
“Investing in mentoring programs that help shape the aspirations of young people at an early age could have a high pay-off later. This requires resourcing schools in disadvantaged areas so that they can access high quality mentoring programs that encourage students to undertake further education or training.”
The research, funded by NCVER, can be downloaded from their website.
Associate Professor Shah will present the research at NCVER’s national research forum Realising our potential: widening participation through education and training in Melbourne on 3 April 2014. View program