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What are the key contents related to democratic life in the curricula of civic and citizenship education in Latin American countries? What values and dimensions are most emphasized? This document summarizes the results of a comparative analysis of civic/citizenship curricula for primary and secondary education in six Latin American countries (Colombia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Mexico and Paraguay) that participated in the International Civic and Citizenship Study (ICCS-2009) conducted by International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). The document comprises four parts. The first section takes stock of the state of democratic belief in the region, drawing upon the most significant opinion studies of the past decade, so as to offer broader meaning bases for curriculum analysis and, more generally, for educational work in the field of citizenship. The second section describes the organizational (or structural) characteristics of the curricula of the six countries and presents a framework of categories for their comparative analysis. The subsequent section describes and analyses the contents of the six curricula examined and how they deal with the values, institutions and citizenship relations in their civic (political) and civil (coexistence) dimensions. On the basis of the most significant findings, the closing section includes some reflections regarding curriculum development with regard to citizenship. A list of the official curriculum documents of the six countries included in the analysis is provided in an annex. A bibliography is included.

Innovation is essential for the education sector. The ways in which curriculum decision making is organised reflects different implicit approaches on how educational systems pertain to promote innovation in education. Curriculum holds an outstanding place when seeking to promote innovation in education, as it reflects the vision for education by indicating knowledge, skills and values to be taught to students. It may express not only "what" should be taught to students, but also "how" the students should be taught. Curriculum innovations can include new subjects, combinations of old subjects or cross-cutting learning objectives. They may also take a form of new content, concepts, sequencing, time allocation or pedagogy. This paper characterises two contrasted approaches to curriculum decision making and bringing about innovations in education. At one extreme, a prescriptive central curriculum implicitly places the initiative for educational innovations at the level of the central administration. This approach provides strong incentives for schools and teachers to adapt innovations that would not otherwise take place. Innovations, supported by policy measures and informed by research, are brought within the reach of all schools and teachers in an equitable manner. The challenge is then to accommodate local needs and ensure the commitment to and implementation of innovations by schools and teachers. At the other extreme, decentralised curriculum decision making provides schools--and perhaps even teachers--with room to create their own educational innovations. This approach allows for experimentation relevant to individual students and local communities. Innovations are meant to spread through horizontal networks of schools and teachers. The challenge is then to provide incentives for individual schools and teachers to innovate or adapt innovations and ensure that they have equal capacity to do so. The paper provides an overview of various possible approaches linking curriculum policy to educational innovation, it shows that OECD countries can mix these approaches and it discusses elements that can affect those innovations in reality. Focusing on public lower-secondary education, it draws on various OECD and UNESCO data. First, the paper suggests that OECD education systems differ clearly when looking at formal curriculum decision making, although no system relies on a purely central or school-based approach to curriculum innovations. Second, several elements can reduce the "innovation power" of the central curriculum and the "innovation flexibility" of the decentralised curriculum. Third, stakeholders--such as experts, teachers and parents--are able to influence curriculum innovations differently at central and school levels. Innovations in central-level curriculum appear to have widespread possibilities to rely on expert knowledge with consultation with practitioners, parents and the wider public. School level curriculum innovations appear to build mainly on principals and teachers' knowledge with an indirect influence from experts and parents. Annexed are: (1) Emerging Curriculum Themes in OECD Countries; (2) Approaches to Bringing About Competence-Based Curriculum; (3) Central Level Curriculum in OECD Countries; (4) Details on the Implicit Approaches to Curriculum Innovations; and (5) Roles of Parents in Decision Making on Education Policy. (Contains 13 tables, 4 charts, 5 boxes and 20 notes.)

This paper examines the financing of tertiary education in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, comparing the affordability and accessibility of tertiary education with that in high-income countries. To measure affordability, the authors estimate education costs, living costs, grants, and loans. Further, they compute the participation rate, attainment rate, and socio-economic equity index in education and the gender equity index as indicators of accessibility. This is the first study attempting to estimate affordability of tertiary education in Latin America within a global context. The analysis combines information from household surveys, expenditure surveys, and administrative and institutional databases. The findings show that families in Latin America have to pay 60 percent of per-capita income for tertiary education per student per year compared with 19 percent in high-income countries. Living costs are significant, at 29 percent of gross domestic product per capita in Latin America (19 percent in high-income countries). Student assistance through grants and loans plays a marginal role in improving affordability. Moreover, the paper confirms previous findings of low access to tertiary education in the region. One policy implication of the findings is that Latin American governments could take steps to make tertiary education more affordable through student assistance. (Contains 25 tables, 16 figures, and 25 notes.) [This paper is a product of the the World Bank's Education Sector Unit in the Human Development Sector at the Latin America and Caribbean Region.]

Second-generation immigrants are typically analyzed under the assumption that, having been born in the United States, they grew up in the United States. We challenge this assumption by investigating the prevalence and patterns of second-generation Mexican-American children's migration to and return from Mexico during childhood, and consider the consequences of this migration for their schooling. Around 1 in 10 second-generation Mexican-American children live in Mexico for some of their childhood. Strong patterns of return to the U.S. throughout childhood, and especially in early adulthood, argue for their being considered as part of the Mexican-American second generation even when growing up in Mexico. The school enrollment of these emigrating children in Mexico is much lower than for those second-generation Mexican-American children remaining in the U.S. through childhood. The moderately negative selectivity of emigrating second-generation children explains little of their much lower school enrollment. We conclude that country of residence is a far more important determinant than either family background or migrant status. (Contains 4 tables and 4 figures.) [This paper is part of the RAND Labor and Population working paper series. It was made possible by the NIA funded RAND Center for the Study of Aging and the NICHD funded RAND Population Research Center. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the 2007 meeting of the Population Association of America.]

This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to test for the presence of debt aversion. The population who participated in the experiment were recent financial aid candidates and the experiment focused on student loans. The goal is to shed new light on different aspects of the perceptions with respect to debt. These perceptions can prevent agents from choosing an optimal portfolio or from undertaking attractive investment opportunities, such as in education. The study design disentangles two types of debt aversion: one that is studied in the previous literature, which encompasses both framing and labeling effects, and another that controls for framing effects and identifies only what we denote labeling debt aversion. The results suggest that participants in the experiment exhibit debt aversion, and most of the debt aversion is due to labeling effects. Labeling a contract as a "loan"' decreases its probability of being chosen over a financially equivalent contract by more than 8 percent. The analysis also provides evidence that students are willing to pay a premium of about 4 percent of the financed value to avoid a contract labeled as debt. Survey questions are appended. (Contains 9 tables and 10 footnotes.)

The growth of potential GDP in Mexico is not fast enough to narrow the income gap with other OECD countries at a sufficient pace. The persistent weakness in human capital development contributes to this situation. In particular, Mexicans spend comparatively few years in formal education, and the quality of the education they receive is lower than in other OECD countries. This paper discusses the performance of education services up to the upper secondary level. It assesses both the efficiency (outcome for money invested) and the equity of the system and shows that the education system has to be improved further to narrow the human capital gap with other OECD countries at a faster pace and to better prepare children for life and work in a modern economy. The key problem is not a lack of resources but rather inefficiencies and misallocation of spending together with weak incentives for education professionals to perform well. The paper makes specific recommendations to improve the system. The ongoing efforts undertaken by the authorities go in the right direction but are not sufficient. This Paper relates to the 2005 OECD Economic Survey of Mexico (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/mexico). (A bibliography is included. Background information is annexed. Contains 43 footnotes, 11 figures, 2 boxes and 4 tables.)

This paper discusses the most relevant issues concerning teacher evaluation in primary and secondary education by reviewing the recent literature and analysing current practices within the OECD countries. First, it provides a conceptual framework highlighting key features of teacher evaluation schemes. In particular, it emphasises the importance of clarifying the purposes of teacher appraisal, whether summative when designed to assure that the practices enhancing student learning are undertaken or formative when conducted for further professional development objectives. It also encompasses the diverse criteria and instruments commonly used to assess teachers as well as the actors generally involved in the process and potential consequences for teachers' professional life. Second, it deals with a number of contentious points, including the question of the use of student outcomes to measure teaching performance, the advantages and drawbacks of different approaches given the purpose emphasised and resource restrictions, the implementation difficulties resulting from different stakeholders' interests and possible ways to overcome these obstacles. Finally, it provides an account of current empirical evidence, pointing out mixed results stemming from difficulties in assessing the effects of such evaluation schemes on teaching quality, teachers' motivation and student learning. It concludes by considering the circumstances under which teacher evaluation systems seem to be more effective, fair and reliable. Developing a comprehensive approach to evaluate teachers is critical to make demands for educational best practice compatible with teachers' appropriation of the process as well as to enhance the decisive attractiveness and recognition of the teaching profession. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper examines the current academic and policy literatures surrounding teacher education. It provides a typology of existing national system of initial education and in-service education, in addition to presenting some of the advantages and disadvantages of these different systems. This report will provide an account of the current empirical evidence on the effects of teacher education mechanisms. A bibliography is included. (Contains 7 figures and 4 tables.)

Education plays an essential role in preparing the children of immigrants for participation in the labour market and society. Giving these children opportunities to fully develop their potential is vital for future economic growth and social cohesion in OECD countries. But migrant students in most OECD countries tend to have lower education outcomes than their native peers. Extensive previous research has described the system level, school level and individual level factors that influence the education outcomes of migrant students. Building on such previous research, this paper looks at the ways in which "education policies" can influence these factors to help provide better educational opportunities for migrant students. (Contains 7 footnotes.) [This review was prepared for the OECD Thematic Review on Migrant Education. It was presented and discussed at the Second Meeting of the Group of National Experts on the Education of Migrants in Paris on 13-14 October 2008.]

Quality of education is a determining factor in a nation's competitiveness. Although Mexico has made tremendous progress toward achieving universal basic education, school quality has not kept pace with enrollment increases, especially in rural areas. Innovations at the federal and state levels to raise the quality of basic education in Mexico include decentralizing the education system, thereby giving the states more control over education, and creating the Carrera Magisterial, a program of incentives and professional development for teachers. The first part of this paper shows that early in their professional lives, teachers in basic public schools are better paid than other comparable groups. The second part of the paper analyzes determinants of student achievement. Findings show that short-term teacher posts had a negative impact on learning achievement. Pedagogical efforts and teacher answers to student questions were highly correlated with greater learning achievement. Students in schools with a high degree of supervision by the school principal achieved better scores. Teacher training was most effective when targeted toward increasing teachers' practical experience and developing content-specific knowledge. Finally, teacher enrollment in the Carrera Magisterial program had a positive relation with learning achievement. Appendices present the National Agreement for the Modernization of Basic Education, data from the 1997 primary education assessment survey, definitions of variables, and determinants of mathematics achievement scores in fifth grade in urban and rural areas. (Contains 23 references.) (TD)

This literature review on school choice analyses the impact of choice schemes on students and on school systems focusing on equity. Reviewing the evidence can be difficult, as the literature is often fragmented and inconclusive, and the political importance of this research often results in high-profile attention given to individual studies rather than systemically understanding collected from a larger empirical base (Berends, Cannata and Goldring, 2011). Different political groups use evidence that supports their positions in favour or against school choice, and their positions relative to school choice are largely based on their ideologies, rather than on empirical work and evidence of effectiveness (Levin and Belfield, 2004). This report steps away from the ideological debate and provides research-based evidence on the impact of choice on disadvantaged students and schools. As "only with data on the consequences of different plans for school choice will we be able to reach sensible judgements rooted in experience (Fuller and Elmore, 1996, p. 8)". It uses analysis and statements that are supported empirically and attempts to cover the widest possible scope of research, and provide responses to the key question of how to balance choice with equity considerations. (Contains 7 tables, 4 figures, 5 boxes and 13 footnotes.)

Mexico's compensatory education program provides extra resources to primary schools that enroll disadvantaged students in highly disadvantaged rural communities. One of the most important components of the program is the school-based management intervention known as Apoyo a la Gestion Escolar, (AGEs). The impact of the AGEs is assessed on intermediate school quality indicators (failure, repetition and dropout), controlling for the presence of the conditional cash transfer program. Results prove that school-based management is an effective measure for improving outcomes, based on an over time difference-in-difference evaluation. Complementary qualitative evidence corroborates the veracity of such findings. (Contains 5 tables, 5 figures, and 21 footnotes.) [This policy research working paper was produced by World Bank Publications.]

The author examines whether education increases patience. Admission decisions in a public college in Mexico are determined through a lottery. He finds that applicants who were successful in the draw were more likely to study in the following years. He surveyed the applicants to this college almost two years after the admission decision was made and measured their time preferences with a series of hypothetical inter-temporal choice questions. He finds that individuals who were successful in the admission lottery were, on average, more patient. He argues that this evidence points towards a causal effect of education on time preferences. (Contains 1 figure, 10 tables, and 6 footnotes.)

Research has shown that education in Mexico has played a crucial role in the process of earnings formation and that returns to education have increased only in the higher levels of education and in the upper tail of the conditional earnings distribution. This paper examines the public educational expenditure patterns in the face of possible further increases in earnings inequality. Several benefit-incidence analyses are carried out bringing together two important and unique sources of information unit cost per student by state and by educational level as well as data from the households income and expenditures surveys. Some results are: (1) at national level the poorest income groups receive the bulk of primary education subsidy (federal plus state expenditures), while at higher levels of education they receive progressively smaller subsidies; and (2) government's educational expenditure pattern changes across regions. It is also shown that public expenditure at the tertiary level is more regressive than the pattern of household expenditure. A large share of public resources given to this level of education tends to favor non-poor students in urban areas. A strategy to reallocate the education public expenditures from a higher level to a lower level of instruction to favor the poor groups has to involve the development of higher educational credit markets, meaning that the government's appropriate role could be to help overcome market failures in the financial sector, which limit the availability of long-term finance for investments in higher education. This paper is part of a comprehensive work meant to build a poverty and inequality strategy for Mexico. Includes 20 figures, 3 tables, and 9 notes. (Contains 29 references.) (Author/BT)

This working paper describes the sequential processes of education from primary to higher education in Mexico and the United States. It analyzes the fragmented nature of the educational systems common to both countries and outlines possible solutions for integrating the different systems. It also includes brief overviews and examples of national, state, and local collaborative relationships. The paper concludes with a discussion of ways to nurture and enhance binational collaborative relationships and the required conditions. These include a consortium of individuals with a common vision; allocated monies from federal, state, and/or private agencies; a process for systematically developing and implementing the collaboration; a process for continuous evaluation and modification of the project design; a willingness to make a long-term commitment to the effort; a philosophical underpinning that is shared regardless of differences among participants; and an overarching commitment to improving education for all children. Also included are a list of abbreviations, a table listing secondary school degrees in Mexico by type of degree granting institution, the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, and brief descriptions of collaborative projects in the United States. (Contains 33 references.) (JLS)

This paper explores efforts of Mexico and the United States to obtain a significant return on their investment in postsecondary education. The authors establish a context for comparison between Mexico and the United States and discuss the challenges and central policy dilemmas that each country faces in implementing the policy tools of evaluation and incentive funding. Compared to the United States, Mexico's system of higher education is less developed both administratively and academically. Following a 20-year period of enormous growth and a decade of fiscal and political neglect, the Salinas administration initiated a strong proactive set of policies in the 1990s that were novel and in contrast to prevailing academic culture in Mexico. In the United States, while similar trends were experienced, these occurred in a large and decentralized system with much experience in institutional planning and evaluation and the changes occurred over a longer time period. The growth of performance assessment and conditional or incentive funding as policy instruments in both countries results from the use of these approaches as tools for government to direct or steer higher education. This paper explores how implementation has varied in the two countries and experiences and future directions for accountability and categorical funding mechanisms are explored. (Contains 14 references.) (JLS)

Do some forms of student (and school) assessment hinder the introduction of innovative educational practices and the development of innovation skills in education systems? This report focuses on the impact of high-stake summative assessment on innovation and argues that it is possible to reconcile high-stakes assessments and examinations through innovative approaches to testing. While necessary, assessment based on high-stake examinations often acts as an incentive to teach or study "to the test". It may thus limit risk-taking by teachers, students and parents, for instance. The problem may be amplified if a system of accountability and incentives uses the results of these examinations and tests to assess teachers and schools. What should be done to ensure that the systems used to assess education systems do not stifle the risk-taking inherent to innovation--and that they foster innovation skills in students? This study proposes three main ways of combining assessment and innovation: 1) developing a wide range of performance measurements for both students and schools; 2) rethinking the alignment of standards and assessment; 3) measuring the impact of assessments on teaching and learning. One way of influencing teaching and learning might be to modify high-stake testing. Systems will adapt to this, and both teaching and learning will focus on acquiring the right skills. Rather than testing the content of learning, standards could relate to cognitive skills such as problem-solving, communicating and reasoning--with test/examination developers adapting those skills to subjects such as mathematics, science or literary analysis. Similarly, more use might be made of innovative assessment methods based on information and communication technologies, inasmuch as these may feature simulation or interactivity, for instance, at a reasonable cost. Focusing the assessment on cognitive processes rather than content would leave more scope for teachers to put in place innovative teaching/learning strategies. This does, however, assume a high standard of professionalism in teachers and an adequate system of continuing training and knowledge management. As a single type of assessment cannot fully capture student learning, one effective strategy might also be to multiply the number of measurements and thus relieve the pressure on students and teachers to perform well in a single, high-visibility, high-stake test. At the same time, this larger number of measurements could provide the necessary input for systems based on accountability, diagnosis and assessment of the effectiveness of innovative practice. Finally, assessing the technical standard of tests and examinations is an integral part of their development, but it is less common to address the impact they have on teaching/learning or the validity of how their results are used. Since assessment is an integral part of the education process, it is just as important to assess tests and examinations as it is other educational practices in order to achieve improvements and innovation in educational assessment, but also in educational practice. (Contains 12 notes.)

Standard benefit-incidence analysis assumes that the subsidy and the quality of educational services are the same for all income deciles. This paper takes a new approach, a "marginal willingness to pay" analysis that measures the impact of the government's provision of public schools on the educational spending behavior of an average Mexican household. Mexican National Household Income and Expenditures Survey data (1996) were analyzed to examine: (1) how much an average household with given characteristics would spend on a child if subsidized public schools were not available; (2) how much the household "saves" by sending the child to public rather than private schools; (3) size of the "savings" for various income groups; (4) determinants for enrollment in upper secondary school by income groups and rural versus urban location; and (5) how individuals' educational expenditures affect enrollment patterns. Among the findings are that the nonpoor and those in urban areas got a large share of the subsidy or "savings" from government provision of educational services. Household enrollment and transition to secondary school depended heavily on the cost of schooling, head of household's educational level, per capita household income, and housing characteristics. Probability of secondary school attendance was much higher in the top 40 percent of urban income groups than in the bottom 40 percent in rural areas. The variable government effort had a significant marginal impact on upper secondary enrollment that, in elasticity terms, was 12 times more effective for the poor than the wealthy and 15 times more effective in rural than urban areas. (Contains 24 references and 26 data tables.) (Author/SV)

This paper examines the impact on student learning of the Programa para Abatir el Rezago Educativo (PARE), which aimed to improve the quality and efficiency of primary education in four Mexican states by increasing school resources. PARE was implemented in the states of Oaxaca, Guerrero, Chiapas, and Hidalgo, which have the highest incidence of poverty and the lowest education indicators in Mexico. The most disadvantaged schools in these states are those serving rural and Native (non-Spanish-speaking) students. Control data were collected from comparable schools in the state of Michoacan, which did not implement PARE. PARE provided participant schools with additional resources such as libraries, textbooks, academic materials, teacher and principal training, and school construction and repair. Analysis focused on (non-Native) rural and Native schools, where student achievement was typically low. Measured by students' achievement test scores in Spanish in grades 4 and 6, student performance in PARE schools improved significantly in both the rural and Native subsamples. PARE also increased the likelihood that a student would continue in school, but only for the rural subsample. The findings suggest that doubling the resources allocated per student could overcome a 30 percent deficit in test scores among rural students. (Contains 14 data tables and a list of definitions of variables.) (SV)

A study examined determinants of wages and productivity in Mexico from 1993 and 1999 using two national surveys. In 1993, 7,619 employees from 575 firms were interviewed. In 1999, 6,259 employees from 722 firms were interviewed. Findings indicate that wage premiums and productivity increased with years of schooling, but workers had higher benefits from schooling than firms. Employers and employees benefitted the most from external training, whereas firms benefitted more from in-house training. Potential experience increased wages, but there were decreasing returns to potential experience. Workers benefitted more than firms from potential experience. Women were paid less than men in both years. Investment in men's education did not increase their wages or productivity to a level above women, but training did. There seemed to be no gender discrimination since wage differentials were explained by equal or larger productivity differentials. Union membership decreased wages across all sizes of firms, but union members were more productive than non-union members. In 1993 permanent workers earned less and were less productive than temporary workers. However, in 1999 permanent workers earned higher wages and were more productive than temporary workers. Foreign research and development and foreign ownership had a positive correlation with productivity and wages. The correlation of firm size with both wages and productivity was positive, but larger for productivity. Regional wage and productivity gaps increased over time. Three appendices explain the surveys and present variables and pooled estimation. (Contains 29 references.) (TD)

This report presents the responses of three experts from Canada, Mexico, and the United States to 18 questions concerning issues in business-higher education alliances in the context of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). They address such issues as the need for alliances; the characteristics of successful (and unsuccessful) alliances; the progress in each country toward establishing alliances; the function of government agencies, professional associations, and community organizations in the formation of alliances; the role of technology in furthering alliances; the advantages of alliances; and the prospects for alliances in the future. The questions are grouped into three sections. In the first, responses to the seven questions about smart alliances produce several definitions of alliances, note various types of alliances, and define the characteristics of "smart" alliances. Responses to the five questions in the second section address what is needed for higher education institutions and business to develop successful alliances, and cover issues such as relationship management and the necessary people skills for alliance building. The six questions of the third section address the required framework for these partnerships to prosper, such as mechanisms for measuring the impact of alliances and prospects for binational and trinational collaboration in the context of NAFTA and the global economy. Appendices present reprints of two brief related articles. (DB)

In 1981, at the end of a long period of economoic growth in the Mexican economy, the national education system had grown considerably to where one out of three citizens was enrolled in school. Student enrollment for 1981-82 was 22.7 million, almost double enrollment for 1970. Close to 90 percent of those students were in primary and secondary education. During the period 1970-81, secondary school enrollment grew at an annual rate of 10.6 percent. Secondary education was available to 86.6 percent of children graduating from primary school. However, schools still experienced high rates of failure and desertion. Advances were also made in higher education, in fighting adult illiteracy, and in helping those who had not finished primary or secondary education. However, from 1982 to 1988, Mexico experienced increased social and economic polarization due to a financial crisis. Consequently, educational advances lost momentum. In some areas of postprimary education, program coverage declined. There was a lack of educational models to meet new demands, and economic hardship on the poorest sectors of society increased. Adult illiteracy also increased, and educational disparities between states continued. Authorities' efforts to counteract the effects of the economic crisis on education were inadequate and lacked national and international support. (Contains 39 references.) (JPT)