Dividing lines : examining the relative importance of between- and within-school differentiation during lower secondary education

This thesis addresses the issue of educational ineq uality of opportunity by exploring how countries and schools differentiate their stude nts for instruction during lower secondary schooling. Using a combination of compara tive work examining twenty four countries using the data on student achievemen t among 15 year olds from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PIS A) 2006 and analyses with longitudinal case-study data from Ireland, this stu dy builds upon existing knowledge in the area of stratification of educational opport unity. The methodology lends itself to a detailed investigation of the differentiating pra ctices within countries and within schools and their impact on student achievement. In particular, this thesis focuses on the relationship between socioeconomic background, socioeconomic composition of the school and how students are sorted for instruct ion. In an attempt to contribute to the debate surrounding tracking practices the thesi s explores how school composition effects vary depending on how a country sorts its s tudents for instruction, the relationship between tracking and school compositio n and the role that curricular differentiation plays in explaining differential ac hievement. The findings highlight that the known effect of how countries sort their students for instruction on the inequality of educational achiev ement appears to be mediated through school composition effects. The results sho w that differentiation at the country level accentuates compositional effects, i. e. school composition matters more in highly differentiated education systems. However , the pattern is less extreme for high socioeconomic status students; that is highly differentiated systems do less to magnify compositional effects for high socioeconomi c status students as compared to low socioeconomic status students. In Ireland, scho ols that track their students are achieving less than their counterparts in non-track ed schools which is associated with the lower social class composition of the school. F urthermore, there is inequality of educational opportunity within tracked schools. Tho se from lower social backgrounds do significantly worse in tracked schools compared to their peers. Access the curriculum is more differentiated in tracked school s with those in the top track gaining the best access to the higher levels of curricula. The findings in this thesis illustrate the payoff b etween offering an achievement advantage to a minority, or maximising achievement among the greatest number. Differentiating practices maximise the achievement advantage for the few who are high socioeconomic status students in high socioeco nomic composition schools. Schools that track maximise the achievement advanta ge for the few who enter the school with higher ability levels by giving them be tter access to the curriculum which widens the gap in achievement between track placeme nts. Comprehensive education systems and schools that do not track their student s keep the channels of movement between courses of study open (Turner, 1960) and in doing so appear to maximise the achievement of a greater number with a small loss o f achievement for the minority at the top. By exploring the role of differentiating p ractices within countries and within schools, this dissertation contributes to a greater understanding of how social class status and school-composition effects vary dependin g on how students are sorted for instruction. Jury: Fabrizio Bernardi (EUI), Allison Dunne (candidate), Jaap Dronkers (formerly EUI/Univ. Maastricht), Adam Gamoran (Univ. Wisconsin, Madison), Hans-Peter Blossfeld (Univ. Bamberg) Bio Allison Dunne obtained her undergraduate degree in Sociology and Social Policy from the Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Irela nd (2002) and graduated with a masters degree in Applied Social Research from Trin ity College Dublin (2003). After her studies she worked as a research assistant at t he Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin Ireland in the Education and Lab our Market division from early 2004 until embarking on her doctoral studies at the European University Institute in 2006. During her PhD she was a visiting scholar for the fall semester of 2008 with the Department of Sociology at the University of Wiscon sin, Madison. Her academic interests include comparative sociology, educationa l pportunity and social stratification.