Measuring Internal Educational Equity: Application to Latin America

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to propose an indicator to quantify internal educational equity. It seeks to make a tool to assess the evolution of the phenomenon in time, and to make comparisons between different countries or regions. For that, the concept of educational equity is defined, the different forms that have been used to measure equity are studied, and, finally, the new indicator is proposed. The indicator, called the “Basic Educational Inequity Index,” summarizes information about education held by individuals at the end of basic level. Then this indicator is used to describe and compare the equity between selected Latin American countries (those that participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA] in the years 2000 and/or 2009.