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This paper is an attempt to offer a diagnosis of the magnitude and characteristics of educational segmentation, through social inequality in access to educational resources in both public and private education. It shows how children and adolescents in the same educational level have unequal access to resources (rights) according to their socioeconomic status. Taken as an indicator of learning segmentation is the educational offer to which children and adolescents have access in primary and secondary school, aspects promoted in the National Education Law (Law No. 26,206). As well, we will explore social representations concerning the quality of education in public and private schools based on the evaluation made by parents and/or guardians.

This study investigated the relationship between the ‘opportunity to learn’ (OTL) offered by the teacher to students in the classroom and their mathematics achievement. The data are 32,156 7th and 6th graders (primary education) enrolled in 1,497 classroom of urban schools in Argentina. Multilevel linear modeling with two levels (student and classroom) was used to analyze OTL effects on achievement. Student math score was based on an standard test applied to the students at the end of the academic year. Three different indicators from a teacher questionnaire were used to measure OTL concept. It was found that all of them are significant predictors of mathematics test score even after students socioeconomic background, socioeconomic school context and level of educational resources in school were controlled. The data behavior shows that (1) OTL is an important intermediate variable between socioeconomic school context and achievement and (2) it is a multidimensional concept. In consequence different indicators should be used in order to properly estimate the effect of OTL on achievement.