The Widening Achievement Gap Between Rich and Poor in a Nordic Country

Abstract

We study a decade of achievement gaps for fifth-, eighth-, and 10th-grade students in Norway using administrative population data. Norway is a wealthy and egalitarian country with a homogeneous educational system, yet achievement gaps between students at the 90th and 10th percentiles of parental income and between students whose parents have at least a master and at most a high school degree are found to be large (0.55–0.93 and 0.70–0.99 SD), equivalent to about 2 to 2.5 years of schooling, and increasing by grade level. Achievement gaps by parental income, but not by parental education, increased over the time period, underscoring the different ways these two socioeconomic status components relate to achievement and the potential for policy to alter gaps.

Intergenerational effects of parental educational attainment on parenting and childhood educational outcomes: Evidence from MoBa using within-family Mendelian randomization

“…We extracted national test scores from the linked administrative data from tests administered by the Norwegian Ministry of Education and provided by Statistics Norway. [48] These tests are nationally standardised and have been taken across schools in Norway since 2004. The data contain eight measures of educational achievement; for English in grades 5 and 8 and reading and Maths for grades 5, 8 and 9.…”

The rising influence of family background on early school performance

“…A common finding is that the disparity in academic achievement between students from high and low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds has increased over time in most countries, yet with considerable disagreement about trends in each country. A study of particular interest in our context is Sandsør et al (2023), who examine a decade of achievement gaps (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018) by parental income and education using population data from Norway. They find that achievement gaps increased when parents are ranked based on income (comparing the predicted 90 th and the 10 th percentile), but remained stable when parents are ranked based on education (comparing master degree with at most high school degree).…”