Open AccessExplaining Gold-Mining and Non-Gold Mining Areas' Inequalities in Learning Achievements in Burkina Faso's Primary Education: A Decomposition Analysis
Author(s) -
Jean-Baptiste M.B. Sanfo,
Keiichi Ogawa
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
social education research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2717-5731
pISSN - 2717-5723
DOI - 10.37256/ser.3120221087
Subject(s) - inequality , boom , gold mining , decomposition , function (biology) , mathematics education , geography , psychology , mathematics , environmental science , ecology , chemistry , environmental engineering , mathematical analysis , evolutionary biology , biology
Research shows that learning achievements inequalities exist between students from gold mining areas and those from non-gold mining ones. However, there is no evidence on factors that explain this "new" geographic educational inequality. Exploiting the gold mining boom in Burkina Faso, this study employed re-centered influence function decomposition to explore students' background and school factors which explain these learning achievements inequalities and also estimate the proportion of inequalities explained by unmeasured factors. Findings suggest that, relative to student background factors, most of the learning achievements inequalities between the two types of areas are explained by school factors. Moreover, unmeasured educational factors explain a non-negligible proportion of the inequalities, higher for students on the lower and upper tails of the learning achievements distribution. Suggestions for policymakers are discussed based on the findings of the present study.