Value-added indicators for a fairer Chilean school accountability system: a pending subject

ABSTRACT

Although schools’ relative contribution to pupils’ progress is increasingly used in accountability systems around the world, momentum for value-added models (VAM) has not been reached in Chile. This small-scale study explores qualitatively the policy context in which this omission takes place, by analyzing policy documents and interviewing local policymakers and researchers about their views on VAM. These agents and official documents not only point to political, methodological and pragmatic reasons for and against value-added indicators, but also highlighted ethical and legal reasons pro (but not against) VAM. Overall, the most prominent reason for including VAM into the new accountability system was the ethical consideration. The notion that a fairer indicator could make justice, especially for those schools working in disadvantaged contexts, was a recurrent idea. In contrast, the most recurrent reasons against VAM were methodological. Whilst research on VAM for the Chilean school system has been conducted over the last decade, it has impacted very little the policy arena. Given that the creation of frameworks for assessing value-added indicators takes time, needs policy and research support and needs to consider potential unintended consequences, the road towards including them into the Chilean school accountability system is just starting.     

Representations of Dictatorship in Contemporary Chilean Children’s Literature

This article addresses the disturbing fact that few contemporary Chilean children’s books deal with Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973–1990). It explores why dictatorship has such an elusive presence in contemporary Chilean children’s literature, how it has been represented in general, and how children are portrayed in books that do address Pinochet’s oppressive regime. Four Chilean children’s books are examined in detail: two that represent the dictatorship from an outsider perspective, produced by authors in exile, and two written from an insider perspective by authors that grew up under Pinochet’s dictatorship. While the former represent children as superheroes whose actions transcend the dictatorship’s repression, the latter depict children who are politically aware, but do not make the adults’ political fight their own. This key difference is problematized in terms of the implications for narratives of dictatorship produced for a young audience.     

Exploring gender gap and school differential effects in mathematics in Chilean primary schools

ABSTRACT

Despite the systematic recognition of large gender gaps in favour of boys in mathematics performance in Chile, the role of schools in explaining this gap has been comparatively underresearched. This paper analyses a longitudinal dataset to explore within- and between-school variation of Chilean primary schools in promoting attainment and progress of girls and boys. In order to reflect the hierarchical nature of the educational data, multilevel modelling is used, with 163,044 students, nested within 3,355 schools, within 310 municipalities to fit raw, contextualised attainment, and value-added models. The weak evidence indicative of gender differential school effect in progress in Chilean primary schools was interpreted as non-substantive. However, differences in effectiveness played a significant role, as girls progressed more than boys in less effective schools, but the opposite was true in more effective schools. Finally, the study concludes that the Chilean gender gap needs to be addressed mainly beyond schools.