SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS AND SCHOOL CONTEXT IN MATH ADMISSION TEST SCORES IN CHILE: A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS

Bladimir Padilla; Lesa Hoffman; Claudia Suazo

doi:10.4151/07189729-Vol.64-Iss.3-Art.1617

Mathematics admission test scores play a critical role in Chilean higher education access, yet their strong association with students'socioeconomic backgrounds and school contexts has raised persistent concerns about equity and fairness in university admissions. In the Chilean admission system for selective universities, standardized test performance carries substantial weight in determining student placement, particularly in mathematics, making it essential to understand how individual and contextual factors shape these outcomes. Despite the test's intended purpose to measure mathematical knowledge and skills aligned with the national curriculum, research evidence suggests that scores systematically reflect socioeconomic stratification rather than purely academic merit. In this context, this study examines the complex relationships between student-level socioeconomic attributes, school-level characteristics, and mathematics test performance in the 2022 Chilean higher education admission process, employing multilevel analysis techniques to disentangle individual and contextual influences. Drawing on a comprehensive dataset of 253,380 students nested within 2,832 schools, this research quantifies both intra-school and inter-school variation in mathematics scores while examining how individual characteristics and school composition jointly predict math performance. The analytical approach utilized multilevel models that account for the nested structure of students within schools, allowing for simultaneous estimation of student-level effects (Level 1) and school-level contextual effects (Level 2). Key predictors included individual socioeconomic status, parental educational attainment, biological sex, school type, and school-level aggregates of these characteristics representing the socioeconomic and demographic composition of the student body. Results revealed substantial and statistically significant effects across both levels of analysis. At the individual level, students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, those with parents who attained higher education, and male students demonstrated significantly higher mathematics scores. These individual-level effects remained robust even after accounting for school-level variation, confirming their independent contribution to test performance. Critically, school-level analyses uncovered powerful contextual effects: schools with higher proportions of economically advantaged students, greater concentrations of parents with tertiary education, and increased representation of female students were associated with elevated mathematics scores for all students attending those institutions, independent of individual characteristics. These findings suggest that peer composition and the broader school environment exert considerable influence on math performance beyond individual student attributes. The variance decomposition revealed that approximately 24% of the total variation in mathematics scores occurred between schools rather than within them, underscoring the substantial role of educational context in shaping achievement. The multilevel models explained considerable proportions of this variation, with school-level predictors accounting for approximately 77% of between-school variance and individual-level predictors explaining about 21% of within-school variance. These findings illuminate how Chilean schools function as socially stratified spaces where educational opportunities and outcomes are fundamentally shaped by institutional composition. The study's findings carry significant implications for educational policy and university admissions in Chile. The documented associations between socioeconomic characteristics and mathematics test performance challenge assumptions of objectivity and meritocracy in the current admission system. Results suggest that the mathematics test may inadvertently perpetuate existing social inequalities by systematically advantaging students from privileged backgrounds and well-resourced schools while creating barriers for equally capable students from disadvantaged contexts.

SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS AND SCHOOL CONTEXT IN MATH ADMISSION TEST SCORES IN CHILE: A MULTILEVEL ANALYSIS

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