Trial lecture - time and place
Place: Auditorium 2, Helga Engs hus
Time: 10:00 - 10:45
Title: Socioeconomic status and the persistence of educational inequality: Mediating mechanisms and policy responses targeting cognitive and affective development
Public Defence
Place: Auditorium 2, Helga Engs hus
Time: 12:00 -
Adjudication committee
- 1st opponent: Professor Leonidas Kyriakides, Department of Education, University of Cyprus
- 2nd opponent: Senior Lecturer Alli Klapp, Department of Education and Special Education, University of Gothenburg
- Chair of committee: Associate Professor Nicolai Topstad Borgen, Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo
Chair of defence
Professor Emerita Doris Jorde, Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo
Supervisors
- Research Professor at CREATE and at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research, Trude Nilsen, University of Oslo
- Professor and Director at CEMO and Co-Director and PI at CREATE Ronny Scherer, University of Oslo
Summary
Educational equity—the provision of equitable opportunities to succeed and fair learning environments to all students irrespective of their background—is foundational for the well-being of an individual and a nation and has long been a central objective in educational research and policy. Yet equity remains a multidimensional and contested concept, shaped by how it is defined, measured, and acted upon within education systems. This doctoral thesis acknowledges equity as a complex construct and emphasizes the need for both methodological scrutiny and practical insight. It thus investigates how equity is conceptualized, operationalized, and measured through international large-scale assessments (ILSAs), and how it can be effectively addressed through school practices, policies, and interventions defined as malleable factors of educational equity.
The overarching aim of the thesis is twofold: (1) to investigate how conceptual, methodological, and analytical choices shape inferences about educational equity—the validity of equity inferences, and (2) to examine how malleable factors moderate the relation between student backgrounds and learning outcomes—the differential effectiveness of school policies, practices, and interventions in narrowing socioeconomic and minority achievement gaps. The dual aim unites methodological scrutiny in measuring equity and practical insight intoimproving it for diverse student populations. These two goals in equity research often stand unconnected despite their interdependence this thesis highlights. I refer to them as two analytical pillars around which four peer-reviewed articles are organized: three empirical studies and one systematic review. The empirical studies draw on Nordic data from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2015 and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018, while the systematic review synthesizes global empirical evidence from 211 studies published between 1960s and 2022.
Article 1 contributes to the first pillar by examining how varying conceptualizations and operationalizations of equity, socioeconomic status (SES) measurement approaches, and analytical models affect conclusions about equity in TIMSS 2015 across Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden (Grades 4 and 8). The findings highlight the sensitivity of cross-national equity rankings to the technical decisions made by researchers. Article 2 further addresses the first pillar by investigating the comparability of a widely used SES measure—PISA’s household possessions (HOMEPOS) scale—across native, first-generation, and second-generation immigrant student populations in Norway and Sweden. The study finds only partial measurement invariance of the scale, challenging the validity of equity comparisons across immigration status.
Article 3 shifts focus to the second pillar by using TIMSS 2015 data for Norway to examine whether instructional quality moderates the relation between SES and students’ intrinsic motivation to learn mathematics, showing that certain instructional dimensions are particularly beneficial for low-SES students. Article 4 further develops and concludes the second pillar by systematically reviewing empirical studies that tested interaction or moderation effects of malleable school factors on the relation between student background (SES, minority status) and learning outcomes. Categorizing effects as compensatory, exacerbating, or non-significant, the study synthesizes decades of international research on “what works for whom” in equity-oriented school practices, polices, and interventions.
Together, these four studies contribute to a more nuanced and empirically grounded understanding of how educational equity can be measured more validly and promoted more effectively. By integrating critical perspectives on measurement with evidence on differential effectiveness, the thesis advances a socially just and evidence-informed research agenda for educational equity.