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Who benefits when economic costs to the pursuit of higher education are diminished? Can such reforms advance the educational trajectory of historically marginalized groups, including women and indigenous people, or are historic social inequalities replicated in the use of new opportunities? The 2016 Ley de Gratuidad in Chile presents a unique opportunity to examine who benefits and how when the state provides a policy guaranteeing free higher education at participating universities. Given the systematic biases and cultural norms faced by women and indigenous people in Chile and the broad design of the state-led policy, the educational reform constitutes an important test of the extent to which lowering costs can facilitate education across an economically and socially diverse population. Leveraging data from two waves of a household survey, this paper finds that educational attainment, measured in the number of years of schooling achieved by respondents, is significantly higher for those who receive such a benefit, consistent with the design and intent of the policy. More surprisingly, these increases in years of education occur for women and indigenous people, even though no programmatic element emphasizes these groups. The results suggest that state financing is significantly associated with promoting higher education in the population and that women, the poor, and indigenous people are significant beneficiaries of this effect despite the social and cultural barriers in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achievements and tensions derived from the internationalization of national scholarly communities have attracted extensive attention. However, very little is hitherto known about the effects of these processes on specific situated communities. Through a multi-method approach (bibliometrics and interviews), we provide a nuanced description of these effects on the becoming of university-based sociology in Valparaíso, Chile, during the last fifteen or so years. The paper pays special attention to the emergence of a particular form of internationalization based on international indexes and rankings that has gained influence on the day-to-day practices of the scholarly communities in that part of the scholarly (semi-)periphery. We thoroughly described the entanglements of individual trajectories and institutional framings in the practices and discourses of sociologists in Valparaíso. The article concludes by highlighting the tensions arising from the encounter of traditions and some trade-offs of the current form of internationalization for (semi-)peripheral communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies the particularities of the educational policies of the Popular Unity. To answer this question, the context has been recreated and the main issues and conflict of these policies are explored. This objective is original because most of the investigations on this regard have studied the logic of the groups that fought to govern the country, have highlighted the differences between the educational projects of past governments or have evidenced the controversies surrounding the Unified National School. To achieve this answer, the study carried out an exhaustive review of the main primary and secondary sources in this matter [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the technical efficiency of schools in Chile, which is defined as the capacity of schools to generate the maximum output (academic achievement) given the quantity of inputs they use. Two alternative methodological approaches for measuring efficiency are used: (i) estimation of a stochastic production frontier, and (ii) data envelopment analysis (DEA), which allows identification of the efficient production frontier of the schools analysed nonparametrically. Each of these techniques has advantages and limitations, which are discussed in the paper; they lead, however, to the same conclusions when a sample of 2000 schools is analysed. The results obtained provide interesting points for educational policy discussion in Chile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Psicoperspectivas is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, Escuela de Psicologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper describes convergent validity evidence regarding the mandatory, standards-based Chilean national teacher evaluation system (NTES). The study examined whether NTES identifies - and thereby rewards or punishes - the 'right' teachers as high- or low-performing. We collected in-depth teaching performance data on a sample of 58 teachers who were evaluated by NTES as either 'outstanding' (group 1) or 'unsatisfactory' (group 2). The collected evidence included gains in student achievement scores, observation log data, expert ratings of a teaching materials binder, and teachers' scores on a subject and pedagogical knowledge test. The results support the validity of NTES' performance categorisations of the two extreme groups. The groups differed significantly on half of the performance indicators, and showed differences in the expected direction on the remaining indicators. We found especially strong and practically significant differences related to time on task during lessons, lesson structure, student behaviour, and student evaluation materials. We also found significant correlations between our results and the sample scores on three out of four NTES instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing body of research has investigated how school staff attitudes and beliefs towards immigrant students play a crucial role in their process of integration. However, the literature has consistently focused on the effects of teachers' beliefs on immigrant students' academic achievements, omitting other factors such as the effect on students' social interactions. Based on cases from Chile, this article examines the attitudes, prejudices, and beliefs that school staff have regarding immigrant students and how these images affect immigrants' relationships with their Chilean peers. I relied on 75 in-depth interviews with students and school staff and 46 classroom observations from seven high schools in the Metropolitan Region of Chile. Results show that national origin-based stereotypes shape the way that educators see and understand immigrant students' relationships with their peers. Moreover, these national-based stereotypes directly alter immigrant students' integration with their Chilean peers by reinforcing Chilean students' prejudices towards their immigrant peers and by affecting immigrants' self-identity, confidence, and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Brazilian Journal of Occupational Therapy / Cadernos Brasileiros de Terapia Ocupacional is the property of Cadernos de Terapia Ocupacional da UFSCar and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We examine how different spatial compositions affect the educational achievement in mathematics of 16-year-old students in Chile, a Latin American country with high inequality and one of the most segregated education systems in the world. Conceptually, we complement the literature on 'neighbourhood effects', which typically addresses the influence of concentrated disadvantage, by focusing on concentrated advantage and its influence on educational outcomes. We construct a panel with all school students who took a national standardized mathematics test in 2010, 2014 and 2016 in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile. We complement it with survey data for the 52 districts of the Metropolitan Region, clustering the districts based on factors such as unemployment, economic inequality, access to services, experiences of violence and stigmatization. Our different identification strategies consistently show that concentrated poverty and affluence are both relevant for explaining educational achievement in mathematics above and beyond individual and school characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes and analyzes the current status of Secondary Education in Chile. Wide coverage, mediocre performances and social inequity are revealed within a context of tradability and prominence of private institutions. Performance-Based Agreements for the improvement of teacher education at a university level are highlighted as of their novel nature. These instruments put the objectives of each University with those of the State into alignment through negotiated processes within the framework of formal contracts setting “Performances of Excellence”. These represent profound changes in both the outcomes and impacts of the quality of teacher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to contribute to the discussion about teacher quality in Chile through two approaches: (a) one based on estimates of the value added by teachers or teacher effect on students' learning, gauged by exploring the role of teachers' characteristics and the context in which they work (school and municipality); and (b) another which seeks to predict student performance using context variables and teacher characteristics. Hierarchical linear models were used in both analyses. The data came from Chile's National Teacher Evaluation System, from the Education Quality Measurement System and the National System of Municipal Information. The sample includes a higher proportion of the poorest and richest schools compared to the total population. The results show instability in the estimation of the teacher effect, adjusting different models that incorporate control variables gradually. The analysis of students' scores shows that, among contextual variables, the school is more important than the municipality for the prediction and that, at the teacher level, only participation in professional development programs is statistically significant, with no evidence supporting the value of experience and initial education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last 30 years, Chile has undergone noteworthy economic development and an exponential growth in the access of its population to higher education. The aim of this paper was to review the changes in academic, economic and workforce issues that occurred as a consequence of the growth in supply of undergraduate dental vacancies between 1997 and 2011. Data collected from the Consejo de Educación Superior - CES, Comisión Nacional de Acreditación - CNA, and Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas de Chile - INE included these variables: number of dental schools, school type (private or traditional, see explanation below), city where the school is located, entry vacancies, total student enrollment, admission scores, percentile rank of dentistry as a university career, tuition fees, accreditation status, and number of inhabitants. There was an exponential increase in dental schools in Chile (5 to 34) that occurred in association with the rise in tuition fees (US$ 3900 to US$ 9800), a deterioration in the academic level of dental students (650 to 550 points in admission scores) and a predicted 77.5% oversupply of dentists by 2025, according to WHO criteria. The exponential increase in dental schools in Chile brought about negative consequences, such as increasing career costs, deterioration in the academic level of dental students, and an oversupply of dentists, associated with lower incomes and possibly leading to unemployment. Additional research should be conducted to determine whether an increase in the number of dentists can improve the population's access to dental care and reduce the oral disease burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper analyzes the socioeconomic stratification of achievement in the Chilean voucher system using a census of 4th and 8th graders, a multilevel methodology, and accounting for unobserved selectivity into school sector. Findings indicate that the association between the school''s aggregate family socioeconomic status (SES) and test scores is much greater in the private-voucher sector than in the public one, resulting in marked socioeconomic stratification of test scores in the Chilean voucher system. We also find that the amount of tuition fees paid by parents in private-voucher schools has no bearing on test scores, after controlling for the socioeconomic makeup of the school. Implications of these findings for educational inequality in the context of a universal voucher system are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper estimates the impact of private education on the academic achievement of low-income students in Chile. To deal with selection bias, we use propensity score matching to compare the test scores of reduced-fee paying, low-income students in fee-charging private voucher schools to those of similar students in public schools and free private voucher schools. Our results reveal that students in fee-charging private voucher schools score slightly higher than students in public schools. The difference in standardized test scores is approximately 10 points, a test score gain of 0.2 standard deviations. We find no difference in the academic achievement of students in the fee-charging private voucher treatment group relative to their counterparts in free private voucher schools. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Historic achievement gaps in mathematics favoring male students have recently started to narrow, close, or even shift in favor of female students. Still, in many countries, male students continue to outperform their female counterparts in international mathematics assessments. Chile has one of the highest mathematics achievement gaps in the world, as shown by international assessment tests, with males outperforming females. Using nationally representative longitudinal data and multigroup latent growth modeling (LGM), the purpose of this study was to track the gender scoring gap in mathematics from kindergarten to grade 12. Findings showed gender differences emerged during preschool and increasingly widened as students progressed through school. Although the gap subsided slightly between grades 10 and 12, the initial gap almost doubled by the end of high school, with important implications for access to higher education and choice of major. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the development of an evaluation and impact framework to assess the effectiveness of educational innovations. It can be utilized within a single program, as well as at institutional and national levels. While it is contextualized in a Chilean university, it is argued that it is widely applicable as it is informed by international best practice. The rationale that informed the development of the evaluation framework is described and is illustrated using two programs: Faculty Learning Communities; and Student Learning Assistants. These demonstrate how the framework can be customized utilizing indicators and outcomes relevant to specific programs and stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the effects of the neighborhood in which a school is located on children's mathematics achievement in Chile. It uses data taken from a sample of 127,020 sixth grade students measured by the National Education Quality Measurement System [Sistema Nacional de Medición de la Calidad de la Educación]. The incorporation of a measurement of socio-economic polarization of the geographic environment, which is innovative in urban studies, allows us to qualify some critical aspects suggested in the academic discussion. A lagged dependent variable model is used, controlling for the score obtained by the same students in fourth grade. Using multilevel linear regressions, the results show positive effects related to participation in neighborhood organizations. One critical finding is that socio-economic polarization has a negative and significant impact on the educational achievement of sixth graders. The conclusions highlight the repercussions associated with acute inequalities in the neighborhoods, and speak to the importance of accessing dimensions which are more closely linked to cities' social structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Universitas Psychologica is the property of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The objective of this study was to identify trajectories of school improvement experienced by Chilean elementary schools over the last decade. Using econometric analysis and controlling for potential confounding factors, we created an index of school performance combining outcome indicators focused on different school dimensions, and estimated the 2002/2010 evolution of school improvement for all Chilean schools with available data. Broadly, we estimated an average increase in the school performance of about 0.19SD; nevertheless, while 41% of the schools increased their educational performance by at least 0.1SD, 25% of the schools decreased it during the same period; we also found that improving school effectiveness was more probable among schools with lower student socioeconomic status (SES). Finally, we found that the observed school improvement trajectories tended to be non-linear; thus, we estimated that only 13.4% of the schools improved their performance in a systematic way during the entire decade. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the 1990s, Chile has participated in all major international large-scale assessment studies (ILSAs) of the IEA and OECD, as well as the regional ones conducted by UNESCO in Latin America, after it had been involved in the very first international Science Study in 1970–1971. This article examines the various ways in which these studies have impacted on educational policies in Chile. It discusses how results were used for leverage purposes in law-making, and how the concepts and frameworks of specific ILSAs were integrated into crucial normative policy instruments, particularly curriculum standards, as well as the national assessment framework and instruments. In identifying main features and means of impact, the article illustrates that the use of data and criteria from international assessments varies in ambits and depth of impact, according to the larger features of the political context in which educational policies are embedded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios Sobre Educacion is the property of Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Navarra, S.A. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This is an impact evaluation of the Technical Support to Failing Schools Program, a Chilean compensatory program that provided 4-year in-school technical assistance to low-performing schools to improve students’ academic achievement. The author implemented a quasi-experimental design by using difference-in-differences estimation combined with propensity scores matching procedures to estimate treatment effects. The main findings were the following: (a) the program had positive effects on fourth-grade students’ achievement in both language and mathematics; (b) program effect size was 0.23 standard deviations, and not sensitive to control for covariates; (c) there were larger effects for students in the middle part of the students’ test-score distribution; (d) after the intervention had ceased, the program impact declined rapidly; and (e) the program reduced grade retention by 1.5 percentage points. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this article is twofold. First, we show that despite students' disadvantaged backgrounds and despite not having more financial resources than similar schools, there are schools in Chile that serve low-income students and that obtain superior academic outcomes. Second, we present qualitative evidence to identify school and classroom processes that might explain these good results. Specifically, we analyse a network of Chilean private voucher schools called Sociedad de Instruccion Primaria (SIP). In the econometric analysis we use a number of propensity score-based estimation methods to find that SIP students' achievement is not due to observables or selection on measured variables. We also perform a number of interviews in SIP schools and other neighbouring schools. Our qualitative analysis suggests that having children's learning as a central and permanent goal, an aim that is shared and that drives the community's efforts, seems to best summarize what makes SIP schools special. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The voucher scheme introduced in Chile in 1981 allows for-profit private subsidized schools to choose their students. The objective of this article is to present evidence of this practice and examine its relationship with academic performance using information from the 2005 SIMCE test, in which parents were asked about the admission requirements for their children's schools. We present evidence indicating that student selection is a widespread practice among private subsidized schools. Using OLS and after controlling for a series of selection criteria and the segmentation effects that they produce, the evidence indicates that there are no differences in results between public and private subsidized education. Our results show that a student attending a school that uses selection criteria obtains 7-9 percent higher results in standardized mathematics tests than a student from a school that does not use selection. The main conclusion of this study is that the basic belief behind the voucher system in Chile that competition will lead to better quality of all schools is not being met. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with the academic achievement of indigenous children using data from Bolivia's SIMECAL assessment in 1997 and from Chile's SIMCE assessments in 1997 and 1999. It finds a consistent gap of 0.3 to 0.5 standard deviations, favoring nonindigenous students. For several reasons, their achievement is probably lower than that of nonindigenous children. First, indigenous parents typically have less formal schooling and lower earnings than other adults; Both are common measures of the quality of the educational environment in the home. Second, indigenous families are more likely to live in rural areas or poor urban areas, where public schools may have fewer and lower-quality instructional resources. Third, schools have usually ignored and occasionally punished the use of indigenous languages.