Content uploaded by Deni Mazrekaj
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Deni Mazrekaj on Nov 18, 2019
Content may be subject to copyright.
A preview of the PDF is not available
An Economic Perspective on School Dropout
Abstract and Figures
This doctoral dissertation employs quasi-experimental empirical methods on administrative population data to investigate the causal relationship between high school dropout and its selected predictors, labour market consequences, and policies. Within this broad research agenda, contributions are made in four specific research topics. I first use coarsened exact matching and treatment effect bounds and find that children who were raised in a relatively modern family structure, a same-sex family, have a lower probability to drop out of high school than children who were raised in a different-sex family. I then consider the consequences of school dropout, by comparing the labour market outcomes of high school dropouts with labour market outcomes of high school graduates in both Belgium and the Netherlands. In Belgium, I use parental educational background as an instrumental variable and find no returns to a high school diploma. Conversely, in the Netherlands, I exploit standardized exit exams in a fuzzy regression discontinuity design and find that, unlike in Belgium, the returns to a high school diploma are positive and can be explained by a high school diploma serving as an important signal of productivity on the labour market. Finally, I evaluate modular education in Belgium, a dropout prevention policy in which conventional courses are divided into smaller components or modules. Using a difference-in-differences framework, I find that modular education is an effective policy to tackle high school dropout, with largest effects on the foreign origin students.
Figures - uploaded by Deni Mazrekaj
Author content
All figure content in this area was uploaded by Deni Mazrekaj
Content may be subject to copyright.
... What complicates matters is that education is neither purely private nor public (Levin, 1987(Levin, , 2009. Rather, it is a 'mixed' good because it provides both types of benefits. ...
Social justice in education refers to the expectation that the education system provides fairness in its access to opportunities and results. Proponents of educational privatisation believe this would not only open up opportunities for those that otherwise are restricted from attending good schools, but that it would also improve overall efficiency in the education system through pressures of market competition. This article first provides a framework for analysing a quasi-market in education and for considering the potential effects of privatisation. It then applies this framework to the Netherlands, a school system premised completely on choice where two thirds of the schools are privately sponsored. We conclude that the Dutch system, thanks to a series of policies and regulations in place, performs relatively well on social justice, when looking at freedom of choice and overall productive efficiency. However, for equity and social cohesion, despite clear policy efforts, the privatised system seems to undermine social justice for certain groups in the population. The dilemma observed here is that some private benefits of education must be compromised to achieve greater equity and social cohesion. It is an open question whether policy makers are willing to make such tradeoffs.
Deze studie beschrijft het economisch effect van ondernemerschapsopleidingen van SYNTRA. Voor een individu meten we het effect van een opleiding als de arbeidsmarkteffecten die een cursist geniet na het volgen van een SYNTRA-opleiding. We kunnen een SYNTRA-opleiding immers beschouwen als een extra scholing, die resulteert in de opbouw van menselijk kapitaal. Het extra menselijk kapitaal vertaalt zich op de arbeidsmarkt in hoger loon of hogere kans voor ondernemerschap. Door te analyseren wat het effect is van het volgen van een SYNTRA-opleiding voor een individu, kunnen we het economisch effect van een SYNTRA-opleiding onderzoeken. Daarnaast biedt deze studie een overzicht van de beschikbare literatuur rond de effecten van ondernemerschapsonderwijs.
Dit hoofdstuk wil de vsv-problematiek duidelijk toelichten en een aantal wetenschappelijk bewezen (buitenlandse) best-practice maatregelen weergeven. Het hoofdstuk is als volgt gestructureerd. Eerst worden de gevolgen van vsv opgesomd om duidelijk te maken dat schooluitval effectief een urgent probleem is. Vervolgens worden de beschikbare gegevens gepresenteerd. Ten derde staan we stil bij de voorspellers van vsv. Hierna worden de huidige maatregelen in Vlaanderen en de Federatie Wallonië en Brussel toegelicht en ten slotte worden een aantal nieuwe bewezen maatregelen aanbevolen. We sluiten af met 8 prioritaire aanbevelingen.
Jongeren die zonder diploma middelbaar onderwijs de schoolbanken verlaten, ondervinden gemiddeld genomen meer moeilijkheden doorheen hun leven dan jongeren met een middelbaar diploma. Toch is deze eerste groep van vroegtijdig schoolverlaters (vsv’ers) nog steeds omvangrijk. In 2015 bedroeg het percentage jongeren tot 24 jaar die geen diploma secundair onderwijs hebben en niet langer aan onderwijs of training deelnemen in Vlaanderen 7,2%. In vergelijking met andere landen uit de EU-28 staat Vlaanderen daarmee op de achtste plaats, terwijl het beter doet dan de Franstalige Gemeenschap (13,1%) en het Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest (15,8%).
In efficiency studies, inputs and outputs are often noisy measures, especially when education data is used. This article complements the conditional efficiency model by correcting for bias within conditional draws, using the m out of n bootstrap procedure. With a unique panel dataset, we estimate managerial efficiency, which accounts for nondiscretionary variables, and explain efficiency differentials of adult education programs in Flanders. Our results suggest that the characteristics of learners in a program matter for managerial efficiency, and that teacher characteristics are strongly correlated with efficiency differentials, as more homogeneity in the teacher workforce appears to result in higher program efficiency.
Elite schools in Hungary cherry pick high achieving students from general primary schools. The geographical coverage of elite schools has remained unchanged since 1999, when the establishment of new elite schools stopped. We exploit this geographical variation and estimate the impact of high achieving peers leaving the class on student achievement, behaviour, and aspirations for higher education. Our estimates indicate moderate but heterogeneous effects on those left behind in general primary schools.
This study examines teacher discretion effects in Dutch secondary education for the period 2007–2012. Stark discontinuities are observed in the exam grade distribution for high-stakes retaking students and are located at important graduation thresholds. This phenomenon is systematically related to the level of discretion when grading the exam, with results suggesting that approximately 11% of all graduating retakers did so because of teacher discretion. This yields unequal graduation opportunities that are the result of school- and subject choice patterns, since teacher discretion is structurally and selectively exerted at the school-level with the objective to let students on the margin graduate.
This article offers the first large-scale comparative analysis of pupils’ and teachers’ perspectives on homosexuality using two waves (2013 and 2017) of self-collected data through questionnaires issued in eight European countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Spain, Poland, Hungary and Turkey. Using these unique data, the authors examine to what extent differences prevail across countries, what mechanisms explain the differences, and how the differences change over time. The results indicate significant differences across countries. Moreover, although a positive trend can be observed between the two waves of the survey, in some countries the general climate towards homosexuality is reversing.
Research is divided as to whether children living in same-sex parent familiesachieve different outcomes compared with their peers. In this article, weimprove on earlier estimates of such differences and subsequently study wheth-er and why the association between parental union sex composition and chil-dren’s school progress changed over time. Data from the American CommunitySurvey waves 2008– 2015 (N = 1,952,490 including 7,792 children living witha same-sex couple) indicate that children living with same-sex couples werehistorically more likely to be behind in school but that this association disap-peared over time. Changes in socioeconomic characteristics of same-sex couplesplayed a minor role. In 2008, it was only in areas with unfavorable laws andattitudes toward same-sex couples that children living with same-sex coupleswere more likely to be behind in school. This was especially the c ase foradopted children. In more recent periods, no effect of parental union sexcomposition on school progress is observed within any area or among anygroup studied. Based on where and when these changes took place, it issuggested that changing attitudes toward same-sex couples might have playedan important role in equalizing school progress across groups.