Providing equal opportunities to children from different backgrounds is one of the central tasks of schooling. Yet, despite decades of research, it remains unclear to what extent schools serve as ‘the Great Equalizer’ when it comes to inequality. This project will use a novel approach exploiting random variation in test dates to study school exposure effects. Dutch register data covering pupils’ performance throughout primary education will be used to examine if school exposure affects learning and decreases socioeconomic status (SES) gaps.
The project uses a differential exposure approach, one that overcomes many issues with the seasonal comparison design. Several scholars have assessed that school exposure by exploiting random variation in birth date and test date, while having a fixed school-entry date. In this project, school exposure will be assessed with the random variation in dates of the mid-term test and end-of-term test in primary school. If there is more time between the test occasions, there is more school exposure. This is expected to affect positively pupils’ learning, especially for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The country context – the Netherlands – provides high-quality administrative data and a substantially interesting context to study. Similar to other OECD countries, pupils’ performance levels are declining and increasingly depend on their SES background. Moreover, there is a growing shortage of teachers and one option that has been proposed is to reduce to school week to four from five days. Knowing the school exposure effects on performance and inequality would, therefore, provide valuable policy-relevant insights. Also, studying the Netherlands will add to the limited empirical evidence of school exposure outside the United States. Primary education in the Netherlands is characterised by relatively high centralisation, standardisation, and regulation. Private schools are rare and both public schools and religious schools receive public financing, proportional to the number of pupils. Hence, the more equal school environment in the Netherlands can be expected to have a higher potential to compensate than in the United States.