The indigenous test score gap in Bolivia and chile

This article is concerned with the academic achievement of indigenous children. For several reasons, their achievement is probably lower than that of nonindigenous children. First, indigenous parents typically have less formal schooling and lower earnings than other adults. Both are common measures of the quality of the educational environment in the home. Second, indigenous families are more likely to live in rural areas or poor urban areas, where public schools may have fewer and lower-quality instructional resources. Third, schools have usually ignored and occasionally punished the use of indigenous languages. They have also balked at modifying their instruction to accommodate linguistic diversity, although this has changed in recent years. Any of these factors - alone or in concert - may drive a wedge between the mean achievement of indigenous and nonindigenous, students. © 2004 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.