Socioeconomic Status and Academic Outcomes in Developing Countries: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Despite the multiple meta-analyses documenting the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and achievement, none have examined this question outside of English-speaking industrialized countries. This study is the first meta-analytic effort, to the best of our knowledge, to focus on developing countries. Based on 49 empirical studies representing 38 countries, and a sample of 2,828,216 school-age students (grades K–12) published between 1990 and 2017, we found an overall weak relation between SES and academic outcomes. Results for attainment outcomes were stronger than achievement outcomes, and the effect size was stronger in more economically developed countries. The SES-academic outcome relation was further moderated by grade level and gender. There were no differences in the strength of the relation by specific SES measures of income/consumption, education, and wealth/home resources. Our results provide evidence that educational inequalities are wider in higher income countries, creating a serious challenge for developing countries as they expand school access.

Teacher Characteristics and Children’s Educational Attainment in Ghana: Do Some Teacher Characteristics Matter More for Children Attending Disadvantaged Schools?

“…Policies that focus on addressing inequality are needed as Ghana moves toward a middle-income status. This is because educational inequality associated with poverty tends to exacerbate as countries become more economically developed (Kim et al, 2019). We argue that, in the quest to mitigate academic inequality gaps, rural and deprived schools need to be provided with the necessary educational resources to enhance teaching and learning.…”

“…Evidence across the globe indicates that children living in poverty attain significantly lower educational outcomes compared to their more affluent peers (e.g., Sosu and Ellis, 2014;Spaull and Kotze, 2015;Burroughs et al, 2019;Kim et al, 2019). While this povertyrelated attainment gap has historically received little attention in low to middle-income countries, more recently, reducing this inequality gap has become a major area of focus (United Nations, 2015;World Bank, 2018), and is emphasized in the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, 2015).…”

Teachers’ Role in Enhancing Equity—A Multilevel Structural Equation Modelling with Mediated Moderation

“…Educational systems around the world have long strived to increase educational equity, yet a large body of research has established a prevailing and substantial relation between socioeconomic status (SES) and student achievement (Kim, Cho, & Kim, 2019;OECD, 2016;Sirin, 2005), and this relation seems to have increased in the Nordic countries over time (Hansen, 2015;Nilsen, Bjørnsson, & Olsen, 2018;OECD, 2016). For Sweden, the level of equity is now below the OECD average, with a score point difference of 44 in science achievement associated with a one unit increase in the ESCS 1 (OECD, 2016).…”

The Role of Achievement, Gender, SES, Location, and Policy in Explaining the Indigenous Gap in High-School Completion

“…Consistent with this argument, they show that socioeconomic status has a weaker relationship with university entry for Indigenous youth than for non-Indigenous youth. The lack of effect of socioeconomic status on educational attainment for Indigenous youth is striking given the strong relationship observed in general population samples (Dalton et al, 2009;Devenish et al, 2017;Kim et al, 2019;Lamb & Huo, 2017;Polidano et al, 2013;Sznitman et al, 2017) .…”