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IEB Report 3/2017

Ya hace tiempo que los temas relacionados con la seguridad ciudadana, en muchas de sus materializaciones, forman parte de nuestro día a día. La inseguridad puede adoptar muchas formas. La tenemos también presente en la persistente lacra de la violencia de género, con cifras cronificadas y resistentes a toda medida; también en el ya «típico» acto del carterista que muchos turistas se llevan de recuerdo de nuestras ciudades o en las molestias que sufren los vecinos cuando los propios turistas que han consumido en exceso sustancias varias deciden perturbar la tranquilidad. Con la difusión a través de los medios de comunicación y la amplificación en las redes sociales de este tipo de hechos, en una medida u otra, la seguridad forma parte de las principales preocupaciones de nuestra sociedad y es claramente uno de los retos que hay que afrontar de forma decidida y comprehensiva en los próximos años.

VII Workshop on Economics of Education: «Evaluation of education and training policies»

The evaluation of public policies is one of the most active and innovative areas of research in the social sciences in general and, specifically, in economics. Educational policies have received significant attention in this process. The intended aim of this workshop is double: on the one hand, to establish and share the theoretical and methodological knowledge frontier of the evaluation of educational policies. On the other hand, to have access to a diversity of applied studies in which different methodologies are used.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together original research papers that cast some light on these issues, especially those from an economic perspective. Although the Workshop focuses on empirical papers, theoretical studies are also welcome. The accepted papers (10) will be presented in plenary sessions that will complement the two keynote speakers’ presentations.

2016/25: The evolution of educational inequalities in Spain: Dynamic evidence from repeated cross-sections

A lack of longitudinal data prevents many countries from estimating dynamic models and, thus, from obtaining valuable evidence for policymaking in the field of education. This is the case of Spain, where recent education reforms have targeted secondary schools, but their design has been based on incomplete information regarding the evolution of student performance and far from robust evidence concerning just when educational inequalities are generated. This paper addresses the absence of longitudinal data required for performing such analyses by using a dynamic model with repeated cross-sectional data. We are able to link the reading competencies of students from the same cohort that participated in two international assessments at different ages (9/10 and 15/16) and so identify when educational gaps – in terms of gender, socio-economic status and place of birth – emerge. In addition, we provide new evidence on the effect on achievement of the main policy used in Spain for levelling the performance of secondary school students, namely, grade retention. Our results suggest that educational inequalities in Spain originate in lower educational levels. After controlling for reverse causality, the negative relationship between grade retention and performance at the lower secondary school level persists.

2016/18: Leisure and education: insights from a time-use analysis

The impact of education on participation in leisure activities is of particular relevance when analysing education and educational policies and for understanding leisure and leisure policy design. Yet, despite advances in the measurement and analysis of education, studies of the effects of education on leisure activities have not been especially exhaustive nor have they been sufficiently integrated with leisure studies. We seek to rectify these shortcomings, by analysing the effects of education on leisure participation in Spain based on the study of individuals’ time-use patterns. Results highlight the impact of education on the time dedicated to activities that have beneficial individual and social outcomes, including cultural and sports activities, and reading books and the press. We demonstrate the potential of integrating analyses of education and leisure for understanding the benefits of participation in a greater diversity of leisure activities and for developing policies that strengthen the repertoire of leisure options.

2016/17: Modelling adult skills in OECD countries

Research in the social sciences has focused extensively on the relationship between family background, educational attainment and social destination, on the one hand, and on the processes of skills creation and skills use, on the other. This paper brings these two branches of the literature together by examining the correlation between a range of social factors. The methodology we adopt provides a comprehensive approach to the study of the channels through which literacy skills are acquired, taking into account the interrelation of family background, educational attainment, and the use of skills at work and at home. We use the Programme of International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIAAC) dataset and apply a structural equation model (SEM). Our results show that family background and education play an important role in the configuration of adult skills and skill practices. Unequal family access to resources has a strong impact at later stages in life and strongly affects educational attainment and skills outcomes. Additionally, skills use has a positive and direct impact on adult skills.

2016/16: The effect of a specialized versus a general upper secondary school curriculum on students’ performance and inequality. A difference-in-differences cross country country comparison

Countries differ in their upper secondary school systems in a way that some require their students to choose a specialization from a set of areas – typically natural sciences, economic sciences, humanities or arts – and follow that specialization for the course of their upper secondary education years (e.g. Portugal, Spain, Sweden) whereas by contrast, others including Finland, Denmark or the U.S. follow a general curriculum where students, albeit being able to choose between different classes in distinct areas, are not required to follow a single specialization and thus, receive a more general education. Because countries only follow one system or the other, a cross-country analysis is required to estimate the possible effects of these institutional differences. An international differences-in-differences approach is chosen to account for country heterogeneity and unobserved factors influencing student outcomes, by using both PISA and PIAAC data for 20 different countries. The regression results suggest that the choice of one system or the other does not account for differences across countries in either the mean performance or the inequality of students’ test scores.