Driessen, G., & Merry, M. (2013). Tackling socioeconomic and ethnic educational disadvantage to prevent lifelong poverty. Paper Annual Meeting AERA 2013, San Francisco, CA, USA, April 27 – May 1, 2013.

1. Geert Driessen & Michael S. Merry Tackling Socioeconomic and Ethnic Educational Disadvantage 1
Tackling Socioeconomic and Ethnic Educational
Disadvantage to Prevent Lifelong Poverty
Paper Annual Meeting American Educational Research Association AERA 2013
San Francisco, USA, April 27 – May 1, 2013
Geert Driessen & Michael S. Merry
Dr. Geert Driessen
ITS – Institute of Applied Social Sciences
Radboud University Nijmegen
P.O. Box 9048
6500 KJ Nijmegen
The Netherlands
g.driessen@its.ru.nl
www.geertdriessen.nl
Prof. Michael S. Merry
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
University of Amsterdam
Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130
1018 VZ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
m.s.merry@uva.nl

2. Geert Driessen & Michael S. Merry Tackling Socioeconomic and Ethnic Educational Disadvantage 2
Abstract
The central question in this study is whether the language and math delays of the socio-
economic and ethnic minority groups targeted by Dutch educational disadvantage policy
have diminished or not. Data are from the years 1994, 1998, 2002, 2007 and 2010.
Information from a total of 125.000 students in the first and last grades of elementary
school was analyzed. The conclusion is that large differences exist between minority and
non-minority disadvantaged students on the one hand and non-disadvantaged students on
the other. In the period 1994–2010 the delays of the minority target group of students
declined substantially. For the period 2007–2010, however, the position of both the
minority target group and non-minority target group began to worsen.
Descriptors
Educational disadvantage policy; equality of educational opportunity; elementary school;
language and math test scores; developments; the Netherlands

3. Geert Driessen & Michael S. Merry Tackling Socioeconomic and Ethnic Educational Disadvantage 3
1. Background, perspective and objective
Equality of educational opportunity has been a major theme of policy in most Western
countries for many years (Jencks, 1988; Teese, Lamb & Duru-Bellat, 2007). The
circumstances young children grow up in are of paramount importance for their life
chances. From a theoretical point of view it has been suggested that in many low-SES and
ethnic minority families there is a lack of cultural, educational, linguistic and financial
capital (Bourdieu, 1997; Coleman, 1988; Lareau, 2003). The resulting educational
disadvantage is thus multifaceted and grounded in a complex interaction of factors in the
student, family, school, neighborhood, and society at large (Irizarry, 2012). Educational
disadvantage is linked to the risk of poverty and the degree to which it is reproduced from
generation to generation (Cederberg, Hartsmar & Lingärde, 2009).To tackle educational
disadvantage and create equality of educational opportunity many countries have
introduced additional funding systems for schools and have implemented specially
developed compensation and stimulation programs (Levačić, 2009).
In the Netherlands, for almost half a century now, policy has existed to improve the
educational chances of children from situations of disadvantage (Driessen, 2012). These
policies have gradually changed with regard to organization and funding, but additionally
new domains, themes, objectives and target groups have been targeted and defined. In the
1970s, following the example of the USA, compensation programmes were developed and
implemented to help working class children in a number of large cities in the Netherlands.
This local policy was later expanded to become national policy and, in addition, policy was
developed to improve the educational opportunities of ethnic minority children. Half way
through the 1980s, these two lines of policy were integrated into a single educational
disadvantage policy. Specific target groups were identified within the groups of minority
and non-minority (or native-Dutch) students but, under the influence of political-societal
developments, the ethnic component was omitted in 2006 (Vasta, 2007). Since that time, no
distinction has been made between minority and non-minority disadvantaged children.
Further, over the years, the focus of policy has shifted from the reduction of educational
disadvantage to the prevention of such disadvantage. Increased emphasis therefore is being
placed on the preschool and early phases of education and thus on the prevention of delays
among children in play and preschool groups.
The core of the educational disadvantage policy involves the allocation of extra financial
resources to elementary schools with a given percentage of their students coming from the
target groups. This policy instrument is known as “weighted student funding.” The less

4. Geert Driessen & Michael S. Merry Tackling Socioeconomic and Ethnic Educational Disadvantage 4
favorable the home situation, the higher the weighting and the more money and/or
resources the school receives (Ladd & Fiske, 2009). The indicators used to identify target
group children and thus the student weighting have been changed on a number of
occasions. At this point, the target group consists of parents with little education, i.e. no
more than lower secondary vocational (ISCED 2). Substantively, the emphasis has always
been on improving the language and math skills of the children. However, because of the
Dutch “freedom of education” principle the schools are free to spend the extra funds
received from the Ministry of Education as they see fit.
The policy has been accompanied from the beginning by large-scale and long-term
evaluations (Stevens et al., 2011). The core of these evaluations is based on several national
cohort studies. The immense amount of data collected during the cohort studies provides
not only an important part of the input for the evaluation of the policy being conducted but
also is used to monitor the educational position of the target groups (Herweijer, 2009).
In the present research, we examine how the language and math achievements of the
students targeted by educational disadvantage policy developed during the period 1994–
2010. The central question is whether the delays of specific groups of students have
decreased compared to a reference group of students during this period.
2. Data and method
We used the data collected on the different measurement occasions for the PRIMA and
COOL cohort studies. PRIMA started with the first measurement occasion in 1995 and
collected information on pupils in grades 2, 4, 6 and 8. Measurement was then repeated
every two years through 2005. The Netherlands has some 7000 primary schools, and a total
of some 60,000 pupils from 600 primary schools participated in each PRIMA measurement
occasion. The PRIMA studied was followed by the COOL study in 2008 when information
was collected from some 38,000 pupils in grades 2, 5 and 8 in 550 schools. In 2010 a
second measurement occasion took place (Driessen et al., 2009; Driessen, Mulder &
Roeleveld, 2012; Roeleveld et al., 2011). From these two cohort studies we analyzed the
data collected on five measurement occasions: 1994, 1998, 2002, 2007 and 2010. Per
measurement occasion 12,500 students per grade at 550 schools participated. The focus was
on students in grades 2 and 8 which represent the start and end points of Dutch elementary
school.

5. Geert Driessen & Michael S. Merry Tackling Socioeconomic and Ethnic Educational Disadvantage 5
Two types of data stand central. The students’ socioeconomic and ethnic background is
based upon the parental level of education and parental place of birth; this information was
provided by the schools. The language and math skills were measured using standardized
tests developed by the Dutch National Institute for Educational Measurement (CITO).
To map the developments of the students, the mean test scores for the categories of students
we distinguished were compared to the mean scores for a reference category, which was the
modal category of non-target children of parents with an intermediate level of education.
To gain insight into the magnitude of the differences, effect sizes (ES; Cohen’s d) were
calculated for each difference (Coe, 2002). Effect sizes have the advantage of not
depending on the size of a sample and, because they involve a standardized coefficient,
indicators from different domains can be compared to each other. With regard to the
interpretation of an ES, the rule of thumb provided by Cohen (1988) is usually followed,
namely that a coefficient with a value of 0.20 is considered “small,” one with a coefficient
of 0.50 “medium,” and one with a coefficient of 0.80 “large.”
3. Results
We performed and reported many detailed analyses. For reasons of space we focus on the
main results concerning the reduction of language and math delays during the period 1994-
2010. For the purposes of the present study, we compared categories of students formed on
the basis of the criteria used to determine weighted student funding. In the Dutch
educational disadvantage policy, certain objectives are formulated in terms of a reduction in
the delays of target group students relative to non-target group students (MinOCW, 2010).
By the end of elementary school in the period 2002–2014, for example, language delays
should be reduced by 40%; in the period 2008–2011, this should be 20%.
In Table 1, we present the main results of our analyses showing the differences in skills and
the degree of reduction for delays in the language and math skills of the disadvantaged
groups of students. Various comparisons are presented in the table. The changes for the
entire target group (i.e., minority plus non-minority students) relative to the non-target
group are shown. We then split the total target group into minority versus non-minority
disadvantaged groups. And we examine the size of the changes between 1994 and 2010,
2002 and 2010, and 2007 and 2010.

6. Geert Driessen & Michael S. Merry Tackling Socioeconomic and Ethnic Educational Disadvantage 6
Table 1 - Differences in the language and math skills of target versus non-target group
students (effect sizes) and reduction of delays (in %)
Differences in skills Reduction of delays
Categories 1994 2002 2007 2010 1994-
2010
2002-
2010
2007-
2010
Total target vs. non-target
Language skill -0.77 -0.71 -0.61 -0.63 18% 11% -3%
Math skill -0.62 -0.61 -0.47 -0.55 11% 10% -17%
Non-minority target vs. non-target
Language skill -0.50 -0.47 -0.53 -0.52 -4% -11% 2%
Math skill -0.49 -0.55 -0.45 -0.54 -10% 2% -20%
Minority target vs. non-target
Language skill -1.24 -0.96 -0.67 -0.75 40% 22% -12%
Math skill -0.82 -0.67 -0.49 -0.56 32% 16% -14%
Inspection of the left panel of the table shows major differences in language and math skills
between target and non-target groups. The upper part of the right panel of the table shows
reductions in the delays of the total target group relative to the non-target group for the
period 1994–2010. For their language skills, the target group can be seen to have gained
18% on the non-target group. For their math skills, the gain is 11%. In the period 2002–
2010, which obviously is shorter, the gain for language skills is more limited. For the most
recent period 2007-2010 a relative decline in skills can be observed, for math as large as
17%. When the total target group is subdivided into the categories of minority versus non-
minority disadvantaged students, a much more differentiated picture presents itself. In the
first two periods the minority target group has made major gains for language skills: 40%
for the period 1994–2010 and 22% for the period 2002–2010. For the non-minority target
group, however, the developments are not nearly so favorable. In the period 1994–2010,
their language and math skills have either hardly improved or — worse still — declined
relative to the non-target group. With only one exception for the period 2007-2010 the
situation worsened for both the non-minority and minority target group.
4. Conclusions
The central question in this study was whether the delays of the different groups targeted by
Dutch educational disadvantage policy during the past decades have diminished or not. In
short, the conclusion is that large differences exist between disadvantaged and non-
disadvantaged students at the start of elementary school. Minority target group students

7. Geert Driessen & Michael S. Merry Tackling Socioeconomic and Ethnic Educational Disadvantage 7
have a substantial language delay. In the last year of elementary school, this delay has
diminished somewhat but it is still substantial. The delays of the minority target group
students have declined over the years and in the period 1994–2010 by 40%. However, the
non-minority target group students did not make gains in this period. Moreover, for the
period 2007–2010, the position of both target groups worsened.
These findings mean that the ambitions of the Dutch government have not been realized,
and probably will not be realized in the near future. Various explanations can be offered for
the - initial - gains made by the minority target group students. To start with, there is the
fact that the length of residence in the Netherlands for ethnic minorities has increased and
many of them belong to the second or even third generation of immigrants. Such
demographic developments generally exert a positive effect on the Dutch language skills of
not only parents but also their children (Driessen & Merry, 2011; Van Tubergen &
Kalmijn, 2009). Second, minority parents from later generations also tend to be more
educated than minority parents from earlier generations. They can thus be expected to have
greater “cultural capital” at their disposal, be better acquainted with Dutch society, and be
able to give their children more support with respect to school matters than first-generation
immigrant parents (Crul, 2009). Third, it is also the case that teachers have gained more
experience in interacting with minority pupils and have learned to better adapt their
teaching to the specific situations of these pupils. Teachers also may have raised their
expectations for disadvantaged pupils over the years (Van den Bergh et al., 2010). Fourth,
part of the explanation may also be found in the effects of educational disadvantage policy
itself, but convincing evidence for this is still lacking. Particularly those programmes
utilized within the framework of Preschool and Early Childhood Education, and especially
those aimed at improving the language skills of minority target group pupils, presumably
play a role.
That the reduction of delays did not continue in the period 2007-2010 may be caused by the
changes made in weighted student funding since 2006. For the allocation of extra resources
to schools, it no longer matters if the child’s parents were born in a foreign country; the
only criterion used now is the level of parental education. Recent analyses show that for
nearly 10 percent of the schools this has resulted in a substantial decrease in their available
budget (Claassen & Mulder, 2011). The consequences of this for special attention to the
relevant children in the class are thus as yet unclear.
Compared to the development of the minority target group pupils, the development of the
non-minority target group pupils proceeds less successfully and one can even speak of a

8. Geert Driessen & Michael S. Merry Tackling Socioeconomic and Ethnic Educational Disadvantage 8
relative decline. It is also regularly asked by whether all of the policy attention for minority
target group pupils does not occur at the expense of attention to non-minority – native
Dutch – target group pupils. For Vogels and Bronneman-Helmers (2003), this is a reason to
refer to the latter as the “forgotten group.” These authors offer some other possible
explanations for the relative decline in the school achievement of non-minority
disadvantaged pupils, although it should be noted that it would be very difficult to test their
claims empirically. Nevertheless, one rather controversial explanation might be that there is
an underutilization or insufficient use of the talents and potential of minority pupils due to
their immigrant histories while the reservoir of unused or potential talent among non-
minority disadvantaged pupils is simply more limited to begin with. According to this
explanation, the previously unused talent among non-minority disadvantaged pupils has
now been used to its full extent: thus a ceiling has been reached with regard to inherited
capacities and talent. Another explanation for the relative decline points to the marginal
level of ambition among low educated non-minority parents in rural areas of the
Netherlands (Van Ruijven, 2003). This stands in stark contrast to the high — but often
unrealistic — level of ambition among minority parents located in urban areas of the
country (Driessen, Smit & Klaassen, 2011). But even if these explanations are plausible,
they cannot explain everything. Research shows a large variation in the achievement levels
of rural pupils depending on location: while they invariably perform poorly in the northern
provinces (Friesland, Groningen, Drenthe) they do comparably well in the southern
province of Limburg. One explanation that is frequently offered for this variation points to
the possibly negative effects of speaking a dialect. Once again, however, there is only very
weak empirical evidence for this. The regional variation is quite marked and one can even
speak of a positive effect of speaking the dialect in the province of Limburg. According to
the Dutch Education Inspectorate (Inspectie van het Onderwijs 2001), the achievement
differences between the northern and southern rural areas of the Netherlands stem primarily
from differences in the quality of the instructional materials, which are often quite limited
in the small rural schools located in the northern provinces. In addition to this, there is often
little opportunity to provide sufficient extra attention, such as remedial teaching and pupil
guidance, for those pupils who need it in such small schools. But it is precisely in these
schools that more remediation is needed because there are also fewer opportunities for
special education and thus chances for referral. A final explanation offered by Vogels and
Bronneman-Helmers (2003) is the limited extra resources allocated to rural schools in terms
of weighted pupil funding. In 2006, steps were taken to deal with this critique and extra
resources were made available for rural areas throughout the Netherlands. We must
nevertheless wait to see what the consequences of these measures are for actual educational
practice and whether it is really possible to turn the tide for non-minority disadvantaged

9. Geert Driessen & Michael S. Merry Tackling Socioeconomic and Ethnic Educational Disadvantage 9
pupils without this happening at the expense of minority disadvantaged pupils. Each of
these explanations offers insight into the challenges one is confronted with in attempting to
compensate for disadvantage. Just as no single explanation is adequate to understanding
successes and failures, no single policy is adequate to the solution. What the Dutch case
also illustrates is that it also remains an open question whether extra financial resources
allocated to remediate disadvantage can directly translate into higher academic
achievement.
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