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School quality, child wellbeing and parents' satisfaction

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  • Gibbons, Stephen
  • Silva, Olmo

Abstract

Child wellbeing at school and enjoyment of the learning environment are important economic outcomes, in particular because a growing body of research shows they are strongly linked to later educational attainments and labour market success. However, the standard working assumption in the economics of education is that parents choose schools on the basis of test-score performance, and concerns about child happiness are largely ignored. In this paper, we address this omission and investigate to what extent parents' and children's views of their school are linked to test-score based performance, and to what extent parents' judgements of school quality are linked to their child's happiness. To do so, we use information on stated attitudes from the Longitudinal Survey of Young People in England (LSYPE) matched to administrative records on pupil achievements in England. Our results suggest that test-score based measures of school quality tend to dominate parental satisfaction with the learning environment. However, school quality along this dimension is not strongly associated with pupil happiness and wellbeing at school.

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Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Economics of Education Review.

Volume (Year): 30 (2011)
Issue (Month): 2 (April)
Pages: 312-331

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Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:30:y:2011:i:2:p:312-331
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/econedurev

Keywords: School quality Wellbeing Happiness and satisfaction Subjective measures;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
  • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
  • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

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Cited by:

  1. Maestri, Virginia, 2009. "Can ethnic diversity have a positive effect on school achievement?," MPRA Paper 31547, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Apr 2011.
  2. Machin, Stephen, 2011. "Houses and schools: Valuation of school quality through the housing market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 723-729.
  3. Green, Colin P. & Navarro-Paniagua, María & Ximénez-de-Embún, Domingo P. & Mancebón, María-Jesús, 2014. "School choice and student wellbeing," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 139-150.
  4. Gibbons, Stephen & Machin, Stephen & Silva, Olmo, 2013. "Valuing school quality using boundary discontinuities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 15-28.
  5. Borooah, V. & Mangan, J., 2011. "Floreat Scuola: An International Analysis of Parental Satisfaction with Schools," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 11(3).
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