Social promotion in primary school : effects on grade progression
Date
26/07/2019Keywords
Metadata
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Abstract
This paper evaluates the effect of relaxing promotion criteria in early primary school on grade delay in later years. Exploiting variation in primary school repetition policies across Brazilian municipalities, we find that social promotion in junior primary years reduces grade delay, and that some of this reduction persists through the transition to senior primary school. Cohorts of twelve-year-old students who have been exposed to the social promotion policy since they were seven have almost 5 percentage points fewer members who are delayed a year or more in their studies than do similar cohorts who faced the threat of retention every year. We also find that, when the option is available, students sort across schools in response to the policy in a way consistent with negative selection into social promotion.
Citation
Leighton , M A , Souza , P & Straub , S 2019 , ' Social promotion in primary school : effects on grade progression ' , Brazilian Review of Econometrics , vol. 39 , no. 1 , pp. 1-33 . https://doi.org/10.12660/bre.v39n12019.78513
Publication
Brazilian Review of Econometrics
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0101-7012Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2019, the Author(s). This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher's policies. This is the final published version of the work, which was originally published at http://dx.doi.org/10.12660/bre.v39n12019.78513
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