Academic achievement of disadvantaged Brazilian students: An analysis of peer effects in socially diverse cohorts

Abstract

With the advent of the knowledge society, the expansion of higher education has become a goal of governments to drive both economic growth and social development. In recent decades, as in other countries, Brazil has expanded the system and became the fourth largest in the world in terms of participation, significantly increasing the enrolment of students of lower socioeconomic status (SES). However, besides access, achievement is an important challenge to the equity of higher education, as underprivileged students tend to show poorer academic performance. Considering the microdata of a large-scale national exam (ENADE), one of the largest higher education databases in the world, with more than one million students every 3 years, we statistically analyse the achievement of disadvantaged students in socially diversified cohorts (with lower and higher concentration of higher SES students). Findings support the argument that there is a contagion or positive peer effect of high SES cohorts on the achievement of disadvantaged students. Social diversification may therefore contribute to reducing the reproduction of social inequities in higher education in one of the most unequal nations in the world.