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Educational Inequalities in Greece, Sweden and the United Kingdom: A Comparative Analysis of the Origins

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Changing Educational Landscapes

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Abstract

The analysis of the PISA results indicates that both Greece and the United Kingdom show a degree of inequality in students’ achievement, whereas Sweden demonstrates comparatively high levels of educational equality. Educational inequality can be measured in two ways: standard deviations which give the spread of scores in a given country and the socioeconomic gradient which measures how far social origin effects influence individual achievement. According to results from PISA, the overall variation in student performance is much higher in the United Kingdom and Greece than in Sweden (OECD 2001:253, Table 2.3a) and the relationship between student performance and socioeconomic background is again considerably stronger in the first two countries (OECD 2001:308, Table 8.1).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It should be noted here that the educational system in Greece was interrupted for most of the 1940s as a result of the German/Italian occupation and the civil war. Bouzakis (2005) mentions indicatively that students attended school for just 3 months during the academic year 1940–1941 and just 30 days during 1941–1942.

  2. 2.

    Childcare services include childcare, pre-school education and out-of-school care.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK

    Maria Papapolydorou

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  1. Maria Papapolydorou
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Correspondence to Maria Papapolydorou .

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  1. Center for Comparative Education,, International Education Policy &, University of Athens, Ippokratous Street 20, Athens, 106 80, Greece

    Dimitris Mattheou

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Papapolydorou, M. (2010). Educational Inequalities in Greece, Sweden and the United Kingdom: A Comparative Analysis of the Origins. In: Mattheou, D. (eds) Changing Educational Landscapes. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8534-4_8

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