Analyzing social class and race achievement gaps among secondary school graduates in Brazil

A persistent finding across both developed and developing countries is that lower, social class students score lower on achievement tests than higher social class, students. Furthermore, in nations with students from the African diaspora, such as the, United States and Brazil, Black students score lower than White students even when, we account for social class differences between the two groups. The size of these, achievement gaps is an indicator of the degree of structural inequality in society and in, the educational system—the principal institution assigned to prepare youth for adult, economic and social roles. Therefore, estimating the magnitude of the gaps, how they, change over time, and the probable factors influencing the changes provide insights, into the nature of this structural inequality. This paper analyzes a data set of test, scores and background information for all students, who took a high stakes test (the ENEM test) at the end of secondary school in the, period 2009–2019, combined with school and school district data to better understand, social class and race achievement gaps in a large developing country, Brazil. We show, how measures of the inequality of ENEM scores vary across regions and states, and, we use regression analysis to estimate the sources of changes in achievement gaps, from year to year. We find that such gaps declined sharply in the early years of the, ENEM (2009–2013) as the number of test takers expanded, the economy grew rapidly, and income inequality decreased. The gaps increased greatly in 2015–2018, as the, number of test takers declined, the economy stagnated, and income inequality, increased. We also found that achievement gaps were strongly and positively related, to social class segregation among schools in municipalities, and that states with higher, average gaps during this period reported lower average gains on the ENEM test in, 2012–2019. Although these estimates are not causal, they suggest that social class, and race inequalities in students’ achievement are related both to broader changes in, economic conditions and to local social stratification of students across schools. They, may also be related to lower test score gains.