Raising the Stakes: Inequality and Testing in the Russian Education System

Social Forces. 2020. Vol. 98. No. 4. P. 1613–1635.

Jackson M., Khavenson T., Chirkina T.

Sociologists have argued that high-stakes tests open the door to high levels of educational inequality at transition points: in a high-stakes testing regime, parents and students are able to focus all energy and resources on test preparation, thus enhancing pre-existing inequalities in academic performance. But arguments about a special role for high-stakes tests are often prosecuted without explicit comparisons to other types of tests and assessments, usually because information on other tests is not available. In this article, we analyze a unique dataset on a contemporary cohort of Russian students, for whom we have PISA and TIMSS scores, low-stakes test scores, and high-stakes test scores. We compare the role each test plays in mediating socioeconomic background inequalities at the important transitions in the Russian educational system: the transition to upper secondary education and the transition to university. We find evidence in favor of a special role for the high-stakes test at the transition to university, but we also find evidence that gives cause to question the standard assumption that high-stakes tests should be a primary focus for those concerned about inequality of educational opportunity.

Keywords: Единый государственный экзамен (ЕГЭ), Russia, Unified State Examination (USE), gender inequality, гендерное неравенство, Государственная итоговая аттестация (ГИА), educational trajectories, socio-economic status, неравенство в образовании, educational inequality, траектории в образовании и профессии, SES and achievement, социально-экономическое положение и успеваемость, inequality of opportunities, выбор образовательной траектории

Publication based on the results of: Strategies, barriers and factors for including digital technologies in the educational process by primary school teachers (2020)