Beyond the Weights: A Multi-criteria Approach to Evaluate Inequality in Education

SERIES Working Papers N.06/2020

30 Pages Posted: 24 Jun 2020

See all articles by Giuseppe Coco

Giuseppe Coco

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Raffaele Lagravinese

Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro” (UNIBA)

Giuliano Resce

University of Rome III; University of Molise

Date Written: May 1, 2020

Abstract

This paper proposes the use of a new technique, the Stochastic Multi-criteria Acceptability Analysis (SMAA), to evaluate education quality at school level out of the PISA multidimensional database. SMAA produces rankings with Monte Carlo Generation of weights to estimate the probability that each school is in a certain position of the aggregate ranking, thus avoiding any arbitrary intervention of researchers. We use the rankings in 4 waves of PISA assessment to compare SMAA outcomes with Benefit of Doubt (BoD), showing that differentiation of weights matters. Considering the whole set of feasible weights by means of SMAA, we then estimate multidimensional inequality in education, and we disentangle inequality into a ‘within’ and a ‘between’ country component, in addition to a component due to overlapping, using the multidimensional ANOGI. We find that, over time, inequality within countries has increased substantially. Overlapping among countries, particularly in the upper part of the distribution has also increased quite substantially suggesting excellence is spreading among countries.

Keywords: Education Inequality; PISA; SMAA; ANOGI; Anywhere and Somewhere

JEL Classification: I14; C44

Suggested Citation

Coco, Giuseppe and Lagravinese, Raffaele and Resce, Giuliano and Resce, Giuliano, Beyond the Weights: A Multi-criteria Approach to Evaluate Inequality in Education (May 1, 2020). SERIES Working Papers N.06/2020, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3615055 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3615055

Giuseppe Coco

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Raffaele Lagravinese (Contact Author)

Università degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro” (UNIBA) ( email )

Piazza Umberto I
Bari, 70121
Italy

Giuliano Resce

University of Rome III ( email )

Via Ostiense, 159
Rome, RM 00145
Italy

University of Molise ( email )

Italy

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
24
Abstract Views
242
PlumX Metrics