Is Ability-based Class Placement Beneficial to Disadvantaged Students?The Effectiveness and Hidden Concerns of the Educational Stratification Systems from the Perspective of Fair Opportunities
Based on the practice of stratified teaching in China,this article uses fuzzy discontinuity regres-sion design to discuss the impact and mediating mechanisms of entering high-achieving classes on the academic performance of disadvantaged students.From the perspective of equal starting point,when students'grades do not reach the school's cutoff score for class grouping,advantaged students have a higher probability of enter-ing high-achieving classes,while disadvantaged students have a significantly higher probability of entering high-achieving classes when their grades reach the cutoff score,with a difference of 34%compared to a 19%difference for advantaged students.This means that the educational stratification system of ability-based classes provides disadvantaged students with opportunities for educational mobility if they have excellent academic per-formance,but overall,it still effectively maintains inequality.From the perspective of procedural fairness,the academic improvement of disadvantaged students entering high-achieving classes is mainly due to the presence of higher quality and more advantageous classmates,as well as a reduction in the risk of campus bullying.The ability grouping system creates a"glass wall"that separates disadvantageous conditions,but it still follows the unfair principle of"segregation but equality".From the perspective of outcome fairness,disadvantaged stu-dents who enter high-achieving classes experience a significant improvement of 0.38 standard deviations in their grades.This achieves the effectiveness goal of outcome fairness,but concerns about"class solidification"still exist.
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