School sector and socioeconomic inequalities in students’ tertiary entrance performance and university entry cannot be attributed to the structure of the senior secondary school curriculum, a study suggests.

A paper published in the Educational Research and Evaluation journal, written by ACER Principal Research Fellow Gary Marks, examines the role of senior school courses – referred to as the “stratified curriculum” in mediating or accounting for the relationships between socioeconomic status (SES), school sector, and university entrance.

One prominent explanation for school sector and socioeconomic inequalities in university entrance is that the curriculum is stratified in such a way to the boost the performance of private school and high SES students.

“This study questions whether the stratified curriculum is the reason why private school and high socioeconomic status are associated with better tertiary entrance performance,” said Marks.

The research suggests that senior secondary curriculum structure, which gives weighting to some subjects over others, plays only a minor role in accounting for the influences of school sector and socioeconomic background on educational outcomes.

Marks’ research found that, while the type of course students take during senior school year has a strong impact on both tertiary entrance performance and university enrolment, its effects are largely independent of school sector and socioeconomic background.

“If a student studies the highly-weighted subjects in Year 11 and 12, like physics or French, they usually get a higher tertiary entrance score than a student that studies the less-weighted subjects, like media studies or business management,” said Marks.

“This is true whether the student went to a government or non-government school and whether the student is from a high SES or low SES background.”

The research revealed that only a quarter to a third of school sector differences in tertiary entrance performance can be attributed to socioeconomic background and subject selection.  Socioeconomic background accounts for less than 10 per cent of the variation in both tertiary entrance score and university enrolment. 

Although attending an independent school was shown to increase the odds of university enrolment up to 2.7 times, the paper noted that selective government schools, which recruit students almost solely on ability, perform as well or better than the highest performing independent schools.

Marks said subject choice is a stronger influence on university enrolment than on tertiary entrance scores because some subjects prepare students for university study while others prepare students for other forms of tertiary study or are orientated for direct entry to the labour market.

“It is true that students from higher SES background and those who attend independent schools are more likely to pursue particular subject clusters that facilitate entry to university,” said Marks, “but course type does not explain socioeconomic and school sector differences in student outcomes.”

Marks recommends that other possible causes for the differences should be explored, such as educational aspirations, parental pressure, social norms regarding the importance of education, students’ attitudes towards education, and teachers.

The full article, ‘School sector and socioeconomic inequalities in university entrance in Australia: the role of the stratified curriculum’, was published by the international journal Education Research and Evaluation in April 2010 and is available to download from Gary's publications page < http://works.bepress.com/gary_marks/71/ >

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