Working paper 10/2024 by S. Duranti and F. Bogazzi
The relationship between socio-economic status and school achievement is well documented and extensive literature indicates that students from more advantaged backgrounds perform better at school tests. Despite this relationship, international assessments have highlighted that in practically all OECD countries there are a relevant number of “resilient students”, i.e. students from a disadvantaged socio-economic background who achieve relatively high levels of performance in terms of education. In this paper, we use micro-data provided by INVALSI to focus on individual, class and school-level characteristics that help disadvantaged students to become resilient. Our results highlight the importance of individual factors, while the variability between classes or schools is quite modest. At the individual level, the main factors behind resilience are the student’ ESCS index and the nationality. At class level, there is a significant peer effect, as identified by the class average test score. Some variables on the characteristics of teachers have been tested on a regression estimated on the sample database but no statistically significant effect was found.
JEL codes: I20, I21, I24
Keywords: equality in education, resilient students, socio-economic status, students outcomes
The relationship between family socioeconomic status and school performance is well documented, and a large body of literature indicates that students from more favorable backgrounds perform better on school tests. Despite this relationship, international studies have shown that there are a significant number of “resilient students,” that is, students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds who manage to perform well in school. In this paper, we use microdata provided by INVALSI to identify individual, classroom, and school characteristics that increase the likelihood of disadvantaged students to become resilient. Our results highlight the importance of individual factors, while the variability between classes or schools is quite modest. At the individual level, the main factors underlying resilience are students’ socioeconomic and cultural status index and nationality; at the class level there is a significant peer effect, as identified by the mean score on the class test.
