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Social differences in curriculum access and student achievement are a feature of schooling in Australia. These differences are usually documented at the senior secondary level where the curriculum is most differentiated, but the present study found large social, gender and school differences in levels of study at a more junior year-level. Using detailed information from the certificate records of 5491 Year 10 students, this study found that in English and mathematics the level of study students access is strongly related to socioeconomic background, gender and school attended. Differences between schools, measured using multilevel modelling techniques, are related to the type of school, enrolment size, and social composition. The study also found strong effects of curriculum location in the middle years of school on school completion, access to academic courses in senior school, and final year achievement. The results show significant between-school effects suggesting that schools can make a difference.
Lamb et al. (Wed,) studied this question.