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The present study examines cross-national variation in school-based bullying victimization. Specifically, we address whether decommodification, a concept implicated in Institutional Anomie Theory that measures the degree of a society's social welfare protection, is a protective factor against school-based bullying victimization. To test this theory, we retrieve data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) questionnaire and combine this data with other sources capturing cross-national factors hypothesized to impact bullying victimization. The sample consists of 286,871 adolescents (with an average age of 15 years) attending 14,192 schools nested within 55 high-and-middle-income countries. We estimate multilevel regression models with three levels of analysis (student, school, and country), finding that countries with a greater degree of decommodification have lower rates of school-based bullying. Overall, our findings illustrate that the national level of social welfare protection, which had been previously neglected in this research literature, is a robust predictor of bullying victimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between student performance and social development in the districts where schools are located. The empirical research, which focuses on Costa Rica, combines geolocalized data of schools from PISA 2012 with a composite index of social development that has four components: health, economy, education and electoral participation. Our results show that social development has positive, but diminishing effects, on test scores and accounts for 11.6%, 13.1% and 14.8%, respectively, of the total variance in math, reading and science. The economic and education dimensions of social development positively correlate with academic achievement. In the case of electoral participation, the estimations show a significant effect only in math. We find no significant effect of health. Educational policies should give particular emphasis to the lowest-ranked districts where the expected returns from policies that increase social development are the highest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in educational systems has become a policy priority over the last decades. However, empirical evidence is inconclusive on whether there is a positive relationship between ICT use and students' outcomes. The literature has largely ignored the role that the country context, and in particular the country's development level, may play in shaping this relationship. This paper empirically addresses whether the relationship between ICT use for learning at school and students' outcomes differs from developed to developing countries. We employ data for 236,540 students attending 10,193 schools in 44 countries, obtained from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA 2018). We use two alternative measures to classify the countries by their development level: The Gross National Income (GNI) per capita and the Human Development Index (HDI). The estimations, based on a Hierarchical Linear Model, show a negative relationship between ICT use for learning at school and students' outcomes. This negative relationship is more intense for students from developing countries than for those from developed countries. These findings imply that policymakers should be cautious about replicating interventions and technological applications from developed to developing countries (and vice versa). • Study on whether the country's development affect the relation between ICT use and outcomes. • More accurate measurement of ICT use at school: subject-specific time using ICT. • Two alternative measures to classify the countries development level: GNI per capita and HDI. • Negative relationship between ICT use for learning at school and students' outcomes. • Stronger negative relationship between ICT use and outcomes in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates peer effects in the academic achievement of Costa Rican students. Two measures of peer effects are used: (1) a measure of a schools' average socioeconomic status and (2) a measure of unsatisfied basic needs at district level. The estimation of a three-level hierarchical model allows us to deal with selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity. Results show that socioeconomic peer effect, both at school and district levels, positively and significantly correlates with academic achievement. An increase in one standard deviation in the socioeconomic index has the same effect on academic achievement as an additional year of schooling; two years if the improvement occurs in the index of unsatisfied basic needs. These results are robust for mathematics, reading and science. Results from quantile regression reveal that students with high academic achievement take greater advantages from studying in schools with higher socioeconomic status (mathematics and reading). Meanwhile, students with low academic achievement are the most affected by studying in poorer districts (mathematics and science). These results show the strong feedback between educational and social inequity and constitute a good example of how poverty traps can persist in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper examines the connection between exposure to drug trafficking and school truancy in Costa Rica. • We use a unique microdata set that merges information on cocaine seizures and socioeconomic characteristics of Costa Rican districts with student and school data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). • Results show that students in districts with higher exposure to drug trafficking are more prone to school truancy. Exposure to crime and violence associated with drug trafficking has been shown to have negative consequences on students' health, peer relationships, and educational outcomes. However, little attention has been devoted to analyzing the effects of exposure to drug trafficking on students' truancy behavior, a critical outcome with a high cost at an individual and societal level. This study investigates the connection between exposure to drug trafficking (an increasingly common form of chronic crime and subsequent violence in Latin America) and school truancy in Costa Rica. To do so, we use a unique and comprehensive microdata set that merges detailed information on a specific measure of exposure to drug trafficking (cocaine seizures) and socioeconomic characteristics of Costa Rican districts with student and school data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). In total, we obtain a sample of 4,584 students in secondary education attending 195 schools in 147 districts. Using logistic regression, we find that students in districts with higher exposure to drug trafficking (measured by cocaine seizure rate) are more prone to school truancy. This finding suggests that strategies to tackle school truancy should consider a neighborhood context perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We study the effect of crime (particularly homicide) on students' results in Costa Rica. • Exposure to crime has a negative and significant impact in academic achievement. • These results are obtained when we use IV estimation that let us deal with the simultaneity between the two variables. • This effect is particularly important for students in districts with low levels of social development. • Our findings highlight the importance of crime prevention policies as part of a broad education policy. We analyse the effect of violent crime on students' results in Costa Rica. The combination of PISA data and highly disaggregated information on crime at the district level is a main contribution of this article. Our methodological approach provides also some novelties in the field, the most important being the use of a simultaneous equations model solved with instrumental variables. This allows us to obtain unbiased and efficient estimators in the presence of simultaneity between education and crime. We conclude that exposure to crime, measured by the homicide rate, has a negative and significant impact on academic achievement. This effect is particularly important in the case of students attending schools situated in districts with a lower social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]