Ximena's聽ARIA Project: "Are Schools the Great Equalizer in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Inequalities During the Summer Months and the School Year"
As an awardee of the Arts Research Internship Award, I worked with Dr. Luca Maria Pesando on the question of whether schools act as equalizers and if they can compensate for socio-economic inequalities at birth in developing countries. One prominent line of argument suggests that, despite differences in resources across schools, schools serve to reduce disparities in skills between advantaged and disadvantaged students. This is clear, for instance, when looking at seasonal learning estimates, i.e., when comparing socioeconomic gaps in skills when school is in effect (academic year) with socioeconomic gaps in skills when school is not in effect (summer months). Previous research adopting this approach has found that students learn at more equal rates when school is in session than when it is not, suggesting the existence of 鈥渟ummer losses,鈥� a concept which is of key relevance to the COVID-19 context. However, most of the research done on the subject has been in high income countries. Dr. Pesando and I wanted to know if the same situation would occur in low-income countries. With the help of Dr. Pesando we first started by doing some literature review in order to familiarize ourselves with the subject and have a better idea of the datasets that were used in order to advance our project. When this was done, we looked for datasets from low-income countries that could be used in our project. Finally, we started writing our research paper. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, the datasets that we wanted to use could not be available for us in time for the internship. I will continue working on this research paper with Dr. Pesando during the fall semester.
I was interested in an ARIA project because I wish to have a career in academia. Doing a research project was a valuable experience in order to learn more about the adventure I am embarking on. Conducting an ARIA project gave me the opportunity and the resources to work on a project full-time, which is a privilege that not many students have. By doing an ARIA project, I also hoped to better my research skills, as well as gain further familiarity with quantitative data.
The ARIA project turned out to be extremely beneficial to me as it gave me firsthand experience in writing a research paper, which we hope to publish in the upcoming months. When starting the project we did face some challenges because of how different it is to communicate effectively during a pandemic. Another challenge was carrying out the research question in low-income countries, which was more complex due to lower attendance rates in resources, deprived contexts, and less availability of longitudinal data following children and measuring their skills as they move from one grade to the next. These data are essential as they allow us to estimate learning rates when school is in session and when it is not, thus shedding light on whether schools actually increase inequality or not. Thanks to proper guidelines of communication with Dr. Pesando, we were able to learn to communicate more effectively as time went by. As for our other challenge, 鲍鱼直播鈥檚 online library was helpful tool in finding the relevant datasets. Because of previous research experience and help of the librarians, I was able to navigate the site and find what I was looking for.
I believe that the ARIA internship has given me valuable tools for my future career and education path. Indeed, the ARIA project was a confirmation that research is what I am interested in. Not only that, but the ARIA project has given me a good base of skills that are marketable for other opportunities. It has given me an excellent first step towards other potential research jobs. I am incredibly thankful to Dr. Pesando for letting me embark on his research project and having the patience and understanding to guide me along the way. Furthermore, as a recipient of the Eakin & Hoffman Arts Research Internship Award, I wanted to personally thank Dr. Eakin and Mr. Hoffman for their contribution to my research project. Thanks to all of you, I am one step further in accomplishing this goal. It is much appreciated.
