In order to distinguish between allocation and expansion changes in education, I do logistic regressions of the effects of parental characteristics on educational transitions. Examples are no schooling to some primary school, some primary school to completed primary school, etc. Researchers have done such studies for many developed countries and some less developed countries in Asia, but none have been done in Latin America. Given my question and choice of methods, I required data sets from numerous countries in Latin America that ask respondents from ages 25-65 about their education and their parents' education and occupation. I began my research with a focus on the educational mobility in Chile in the spring of 1997.
Chile is an interesting case study.
If the modernization thesis is true, it should show social mobility is due to education. This is reflected in Chile's distinguished educational attainment in the region and its rapid economic growth over the last decade and a half. I found no such data set. However, this search of existing U.S. data proved to be crucial in my receiving a grant to travel to Chile in the summer of 1997 to search for an appropriate data set. This fall, I sought to expand my study to other countries in Latin America.