The Heterogeneous Effect of Selection in Secondary Schools: Understanding the Changing Role of Ability

By F. Galindo-Rueda, A. Vignoles. Social Science Research Network, 2004

95 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Previous work by the authors suggested that during the 1970s and 1980s, a person’s early cognitive ability became a less important determinant of his or her eventual educational achievement. Furthermore, over the same time period, family background started to have a greater impact on a person’s achievement. Given that this coincided with the gradual demise of the British selective grammar school system, it would seem that the role of selection (ability tracking) in the school system merits further investigation. This paper explores the inter-relationship between school selection, ability and educational achievement. Our regression and matching results indicate that the most able pupils in the selective school system did do better than those of similar ability in the mixed ability school system. We do not find evidence of significant negative effects of tracking for low/middle ability students.

Subfields: Demography, Education

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e9393a611653d76a54b07d0fffe4731dc26e125f

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Demography

1. Janet Ward Schofield
2. Andreas Ammermüller

In Education

1. Janet Ward Schofield
2. Andreas Ammermüller
3. Nicole Schneeweis
4. Dániel Horn

Citations in the corpus

• Educational Opportunities and the Role of Institutions (2005, background): “Evidence for England supports the hypothesis that especially high ability students from a high social background benefit from streaming (Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles, 2004).”
• School Tracking and Development of Cognitive Skills (2013, unknown): “as Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles (2005) who both study the effect of gradual movement”
• Does School Tracking Affect Equality of Opportunity? New International Evidence (2007, unknown): “Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles (2004) study the gradual transformation of British selective schools into a comprehensive system6 and show the increasing role played by parental background in student outcomes, together with a decline of the returns to ability.”
• Workplace Training in Europe (2005, unknown): “87 See also Whalley and Ziderman (1990), who discuss these schemes referring to developing countries.”
• International Evidence on Ability Grouping with Curriculum Differentiation and the Achievement Gap in Secondary Schools (2010, methodology): “For example, Galindo-Rueda and Vignoles (2005) used data from a multiwave longitudinal study of virtually every child born in England, Scotland, and Wales in a given week as they progressed through school while this shift was occurring.”