IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ozl/journl/v18y2015i1p75-94.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does School Socio-economic Status Influence University Outcomes?

Author

Listed:
  • Ian W. Li

    (The University of Western Australia)

  • A. Michael Dockery

    (Curtin University)

Abstract

This study explores the role of schools’ socioeconomic status in determining academic performance at university. Data for first year domestic undergraduates at an Australian university in 2011 to 2013 are linked to schools’ data to examine the role of student- and school-level characteristics in influencing university marks. Schools’ socioeconomic status is found to have moderate impacts on university performance, with students from lower socioeconomic status schools faring better. Prior academic achievement, as proxied by ATAR scores, is found to be a strong determinant of university grades. School sector and resources are found to have negligible impacts on students’ academic performance at university. The results suggest that equity measures to increase university access for low SES students and those from lower-SES schools could be expanded without compromising academic standards.

Suggested Citation

  • Ian W. Li & A. Michael Dockery, 2015. "Does School Socio-economic Status Influence University Outcomes?," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 18(1), pages 75-94.
  • Handle: RePEc:ozl:journl:v:18:y:2015:i:1:p:75-94
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ftprepec.drivehq.com/ozl/journl/downloads/AJLE181li.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1992. "Does School Quality Matter? Returns to Education and the Characteristics of Public Schools in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 1-40, February.
    2. Cardak, Buly A. & Vecci, Joe, 2013. "Catholic school effectiveness in Australia: A reassessment using selection on observed and unobserved variables," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 34-45.
    3. Ryan, Chris, 2013. "What is behind the decline in student achievement in Australia?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 226-239.
    4. Mahuteau, Stephane & Mavromaras, Kostas, 2014. "Student Scores in Public and Private Schools: Evidence from PISA 2009," IZA Discussion Papers 8471, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Brendan Houng & Moshe Justman, 2014. "NAPLAN Scores as Predictors of Access to Higher Education in Victoria," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2014n22, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    6. Buly A. Cardak & Chris Ryan, 2009. "Participation in Higher Education in Australia: Equity and Access," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 85(271), pages 433-448, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Edwards, Rebecca & Gibson, Rachael & Harmon, Colm & Schurer, Stefanie, 2022. "First-in-their-family students at university: Can non-cognitive skills compensate for social origin?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    2. Mahmut Özer & Hayri Eren Suna, 2022. "The Relationship between School Socioeconomic Composition and Academic Achievement in Turkiye," Journal of Economy Culture and Society, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 66(66), pages 17-27, December.
    3. Edwards, Rebecca & Gibson, Rachael & Harmon, Colm P. & Schurer, Stefanie, 2020. "First in Their Families at University: Can Non-cognitive Skills Compensate for Social Origin?," IZA Discussion Papers 13721, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Somayeh Parvazian & Ronnie Semo, 2018. "The Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth: 20 Years and Beyond," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 51(3), pages 426-440, September.
    2. Cardak, Buly A. & Vecci, Joe, 2013. "Catholic school effectiveness in Australia: A reassessment using selection on observed and unobserved variables," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 34-45.
    3. Nghiem, Son & Nguyen, Ha & Connelly, Luke, 2014. "The Efficiency of Australian Schools: Evidence from the NAPLAN Data 2009-2011," MPRA Paper 56231, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Mahuteau, Stephane & Mavromaras, Kostas, 2014. "Student Scores in Public and Private Schools: Evidence from PISA 2009," IZA Discussion Papers 8471, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Paul Bingley & Lorenzo Cappellari & Konstantinos Tatsiramos, 2014. "Family, Community and Long-Term Earnings Inequality," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def017, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    6. Ono, Tetsuo & Uchida, Yuki, 2018. "Human capital, public debt, and economic growth: A political economy analysis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1-14.
    7. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2002. "Identity and Schooling: Some Lessons for the Economics of Education," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1167-1201, December.
    8. Nakabayashi, Masaki, 2011. "Schooling, employer learning, and internal labor market effect: Wage dynamics and human capital investment in the Japanese steel industry, 1930-1960s," MPRA Paper 30597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Barrow, Lisa & Rouse, Cecilia Elena, 2004. "Using market valuation to assess public school spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1747-1769, August.
    10. Meroni, Elena Claudia & Piazzalunga, Daniela & Pronzato, Chiara D., 2018. "Use of Extra-School Time and Child Behaviours: Evidence from the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 11606, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Giacomo De Giorgi & Michele Pellizzari & William Gui Woolston, 2012. "Class Size And Class Heterogeneity," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 795-830, August.
    12. Corak, Miles & Lauzon, Darren, 2009. "Differences in the distribution of high school achievement: The role of class-size and time-in-term," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 189-198, April.
    13. David Campbell, 2001. "Rates of Return to Schooling and the Quality of Education in England and Wales," Studies in Economics 0115, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    14. Stephan Litschig, 2008. "Financing local development: Quasi-experimental evidence from municipalities in Brazil, 1980-1991," Economics Working Papers 1142, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jun 2012.
    15. Michele Cantarella & Chiara Strozzi, 2021. "Workers in the crowd: the labor market impact of the online platform economy [An evaluation of instrumental variable strategies for estimating the effects of catholic schooling]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(6), pages 1429-1458.
    16. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4924 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Maria Iacovou, 2002. "Class Size in the Early Years: Is Smaller Really Better?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(3), pages 261-290.
    18. Anne Case & Motohiro Yogo, 1999. "Does School Quality Matter? Returns to Education and the Characteristics of Schools in South Africa," NBER Working Papers 7399, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Thomas S. Dee & William N. Evans, 2003. "Teen Drinking and Educational Attainment: Evidence from Two-Sample Instrumental Variables Estimates," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 178-209, January.
    20. Justin L. Tobias & Mingliang Li, 2003. "A finite-sample hierarchical analysis of wage variation across public high schools: evidence from the NLSY and high school and beyond," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(3), pages 315-336.
    21. Michel Beine & Marco Delogu & Lionel Ragot, 2020. "The role of fees in foreign education: evidence from Italy [Determinants of international student migration]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 571-600.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Externality; Analysis of education; Education and inequality; Government policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ozl:journl:v:18:y:2015:i:1:p:75-94. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sandie Rawnsley (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/becurau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.