Social Determinants of School-to-School Differences in Opportunity to Learn (OTL): A Cross-National Study

Do some students learn more than others because they attend School A instead of School B? Or is educational inequality generated elsewhere, from common processes within schools, or outside of formal schooling? Within these paradigmatic questions, this study investigates the social determinants of school-to-school differences in STEM course-taking experiences, a key component of Opportunity to Learn (OTL), in a cross-national setting. Drawing on an internal-development model and social stratification theories, we examine whether observed school-to-school differences in OTL can more clearly be attributed to functional or dysfunctional sources, using a large cross-national sample from TIMSS with 278 observations across 67 countries/regions, dating from 1995 to 2019. Results from Generalized Multilevel Linear Models indicate that variation in school-level OTL comes primarily from variation in school readiness in a given country. Yet, we also observe evidence that supports conflict forces of differentiation. This paper contributes to existing cross-national studies of educational inequality by tracing the fundamental origins of inequality in OTL, locating potentially dysfunctional sources of OTL between schools.