Inequality of educational opportunities: influence of children’s circumstances on school performance in Brazil

Abstract

This article analyzes how childhood circumstances explain the educational outcome in Brazil, for students in the 5th year of elementary school. System of Assessment for Basic Education (Saeb) 2017 data were used and, as empirical strategy, the generalized additive model (GAM) of Hastie and Tibshirani (1986; 1987; 1990) and the inequality of opportunities index (IOP) of Ferreira and Gignoux (2014). It was found that the better the set of opportunities, the greater the school per¬formance. The decomposition of the IOP reveals the importance of new variables of circumstances related to cultural habits, the relationship between parents and children, and the school, for the inequality of educational opportunity.