Trial lecture - time and place
Place: Auditorium 3, Helga Engs hus
Time: 10:00 - 10:45
Title: Educational inequalities in Norway: What role can schools and policy play in reducing disparities?
Public Defence
Place: Auditorium 3, Helga Engs hus
Time: 12:00 -
Adjudication committee
- 1st opponent: Professor Orla Doyle, School of Economics, University College Dublin, Ireland
- 2nd opponent: Professor Torberg Falch, Department of Economics, NTNU
- Chair of committee: Professor Åste Marie Mjelve Hagen, Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo
Chair of defence
- Head of department Rolf Vegar Olsen, Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo
Supervisors
- Principal supervisor: Researcher Ragnhild Eek Brandlistuen, Department of Child Health and Development, Norwegian Institute of Public Health
- Co-supervisor: Professor Henrik Daae Zachrisson, Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo
Summary
Academic abilities and educational attainment are closely associated with several important life outcomes, like health, longevity and labor market participation. However, academic abilities and educational attainment are not randomly or evenly distributed within the population but often reflect differences in socioeconomic background.
The role of the education system and educational experiences in socioeconomic stratification of academic achievements can be understood in two contrasting ways. On one hand, education is often referred to as “the great equalizer”, ensuring relatively equal learning opportunities regardless of socioeconomic background. On the other hand, educational systems can also inhabit several mechanisms and institutional practices that reproduce social inequalities.
The primary aim of this thesis is to investigate how children’s development and academic outcomes are associated with family socioeconomic status. Using the MoBa longitudinal cohort study combined with Norwegian registry data, this thesis investigates how educational experiences relate to socioeconomic disparities in development and academic outcomes. The initial objective is to study how developmental trajectories vary across socioeconomic backgrounds. In addition, the thesis studies two mechanisms that may contribute to or reduce these disparities. First, a study examines whether children from different socioeconomic backgrounds have equal access to a public educational resource, special education, using student level data on provision of special education. Second, another study investigates whether the impact of a very common educational experience, attending an after-school program, varies depending on the child's socioeconomic background.
The first study, presented in Article 1, showed that developmental mobility was socioeconomically stratified, with children from high socioeconomic backgrounds more likely to maintain or improve upon early advantages, while children from low socioeconomic backgrounds were more likely to experience stagnation or decline of their relative development and learning ability scores.
The second study, reported in Article 2, showed that students with parents with fewer years of education were more likely to receive special education, but that this association diminished after adjusting for psychiatric diagnoses and school performance.
The last study, presented in Article 3, indicated limited benefits of after-school program attendance on academic and psychosocial outcomes. The study found no significant differences in the effect of program attendance by parental education or household income.