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Education is a double-edged sword in the stratification process. On the one hand, it is an instrument of social mobility, since through competence development individuals can enhance their social position. On the other hand, it contributes to the reproduction of social inequalities; in particular, through the intergenerational transmission of knowledge and skills, individuals of privileged background can maintain their dominant position in the class structure. Comparative studies have shown that whether one aspect prevails over the other depends to a large extent on the organizational structure of educational systems.

In this project, we develop an interdisciplinary reflection on the normative implications of empirical research on educational inequality. Which theories of justice underlie the empirical work on international comparative education carried out in sociology, educational science, economics and political science? The definitional and operationalization choices imply a distinction between some instances of educational inequalities that are considered as legitimate and some that, on the contrary, are “unfair” and call for a compensatory intervention from policy-making. To what extent are researchers explicit – or even conscious – of the normative implications of their analytical choices?

This project focuses on analytical approaches in order to use repeated international school assessments longitudinally. We examine the challenges connected to linking large scale assessment surveys on cognitive skills (e.g. PISA, PIRLS, TIMSS, PIAAC…), with the goal of identifying possible solutions.
Among the challenges are: issues related to comparing achievement measures over time (linking error), issues related to including missing levels of the education process (matching), issues related to missing measures of previous achievement (pooling, pseudo-panel) and others.