A User's Guide to the Brazilian Education Panel Databases

The Brazilian Schools Panel database and Brazilian Municipal Education Panel Database combine and simplify 20 years' worth of data from the Brazilian School Census, educational testing, and educational indicators. This report provides an introduction to the data and serves as a road map to their strengths and limitations. In particular, it draws attention to the points in time at which major changes were made in the format of data collection, as well as the characteristics of different subsamples within the data. The report seeks to provide a practical introduction for researchers interested in using the data to understand and research the Brazilian education system.