The Anatomy of Inequalities in Educational Achievements: An International Investigation Using PISA data.

This chapter analyses the mechanisms of strati fi cation and inequalities in educational achievements. The objective is to determine how strati fi cation leads to unequal educational outcomes and how inequalities are channeled through student characteristics, school characteristics and peer effects. This analysis is undertaken in fi ve countries differentiated by their schooling systems. The countries are Japan, the UK, Italy, Germany and Finland, and the dataset used is PISA 2003. The analysis consists of a multilevel econometric model used to explain variations in performance scores. The explanatory variables are student, school and peer characteristics. The institutional context of each education system is used to interpret the results and to describe how inequalities arise. In the last section, policy implications, based on the regression results, are derived