Ensaios sobre desempenho educacional no meio urbano e rural brasileiro

Abstract

This dissertation consists of two essays on educational performance in urban and rural areas in Brazil. In the first essay, the difference in educational performance of 9th grade students between urban and rural schools and the contribution of teachers' characteristics were analyzed. Using data from the 2017 Brazil-SAEB Test, an empirical strategy of unconditional quantile regressions was used combined with the Oaxaca-Binder decomposition proposed by Firpo, Fortin and Lemieux (2018). It was observed that students from urban schools perform better than those from rural areas in the tests of Prova Brasil-SAEB. The results show that teachers with a degree in the area they teach positively and significantly influence performance in Portuguese and Mathematics, with this effect being greater for students in rural areas. However, this influence would decrease as the quantile increases in both areas. Furthermore, the results of the decomposition suggest that the aggregate contribution of differences in the characteristics of teachers, and their coefficients, on the differentials is small when compared to the aggregate effect of other characteristics, such as individual, family, school and regional. Therefore, policies that aim to reduce disparities in teacher characteristics between the two areas may not be an effective solution for reducing performance differentials between the two areas. The second essay sought to measure the indirect effect of parents' schooling on the school performance of their children studying in the 3rd year of high school in Brazilian urban and rural areas in the subjects of Portuguese Language and Mathematics, through mediation which is the type of school who study, whether they are full-time or not. The method used was the Causal Mediation Effect, the data used are from SAEB for the year 2017. The results show that the level of education of parents influences the education of their children, providing better educational performances. This effect is enhanced by the type of school that the children study, whether they are full-time or not, especially for students in rural schools and when mothers have completed higher education. The results found allow us to suggest the expansion of full-time schools and the level of education of parents, since these characteristics are important for the good performance of students.