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Educational Inequality is the difference in the learning results, or efficacy, experienced by students. Educational efficacy is most often measured by grades, test scores, drop-out rates, college entrance statistics, and college completion rates. Education inequality varies from country to country but is experienced by children all throughout the world.

Throughout the world, there have been continuous attempts to reform education at all levels. With different causes that are deeply rooted in history, society, and culture, this inequality is difficult to eradicate. Although difficult, education is vital to society’s movement forward. It promotes “citizenship, identity, equality of opportunity and social inclusion, social cohesion as well as economic growth and employment” and for these reasons, equality should be promoted.

Causes
Causes of educational inequality include history, family background, gender, and resources. Within these categories achievement, earnings, health status, and political participation can also contribute.

Family background
A student's family background serves as a cause for educational inequality. There is a proven correlation between the academic success of parents with the academic success of their children. In Harvard's "Civil Rights Project", Lee and Orfield identify family background as an influential factor in student achievement. Only 11% of children from the bottom fifth earn a college degree while 80% of the top fifth earn one. Linked with resources, white students tend to have more educated parents than students from minority families. This translates to a home-life that supportive of educational success and can leads to them receiving at-home help, have additional books in their home, visit the library, and engage in intellectually intensive conversations. Children, then, enter school at different levels. Poor students are behind in verbal memory, vocabulary, math and reading achievement, and have more behavior problems. This leads to their placement in different level classes that tracks them. These courses tend to demand less from their students, creating a group that is conditioned to lack educational drive. These courses are generally non-college bound and are taught by less qualified teachers.

Family background also influences cultural knowledge and perceptions. Middle class knowledge of norms and customs aids in their navigation of the school system. Parents from this class and above also have social networks that aid in their children's success. These connections may help students gain access to schools and activities that will benefit them in the future. Additionally, children from poorer families, who are often minorities, come from families that distrust institutions. America's history of racism and discrimination has created a perceived and/or existent ceiling on opportunities for many poor and minority citizens. This ceiling muffles academic inspirations and muffles growth.

The recent increase of Latino immigrants has created another factor in educational inequality. As more and more students come from families where English is not spoken at home, they can struggle with overcoming a language barrier in addition to learning the required material. Also, their parents might not understand English, causing them to lack assistance at home.

Research reveals summer months as crucial time for the educational development of children. Students from disadvantaged families experience greater losses in skills during summer vacation. Students from lower socioeconomic classes come disproportionately from single-parent homes and dangerous neighborhoods. 15% of white children are raised in single-parent homes and 10% of Asian children are. 27% of Latinos are raised in single-parent homes and 54% of African American children are. Less resources, less parent attention, and more stress all influence the performance of children in school.

Gender
Throughout the world, gender has a varying effect on educational achievement.

Female disparities
Obstacles preventing females' ability to receive a quality education include traditional attitudes towards gender roles, poverty, geographical isolation, gender-based violence, and early marriage and pregnancy. . Throughout the world, there is an estimated 7 million more girls than boys out of school. This "girls gap" is concentrated in several countries including Somalia, Afghanistan, Togo, the Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, girls are outnumbered two to one.

Socialized gender roles impact females' access to education. For example, in Nigeria, children are socialized to their specific role directly following the announcement of their gender. Men are the preferred gender and are encouraged to engage in computer and scientific learning while the women learn domestic skills. These gender roles are deep rooted within the state, however, with the increase of westernized education within Nigeria, there has been a recent increase in women having the ability to receive an equal education. There is still much to be changed, though. Nigeria still needs policies that encourage educational attainment for men and women based on merit, rather than gender.

Females are shown to be at risk of being attacked in at least 15 countries. Attacks can occur because groups within those countries do not believe women should receive an education. Attacks include kidnappings, bombings, torture, rape and murder. In Somalia, girls have been abducted. In Columbia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Libya students were reported to have been raped and harassed. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, schools and busses have been bombed and gassed.

Early marriage effects females ability to receive an education.

Male disparaties
In 51 countries, girls are enrolled at higher rates than boys. Particularly in Latin America, the difference is attributed to prominence of gangs and violence attracting male youth. The gangs pull the males in, distracting them from school and causing them to drop out.

America
The historical relationship in the United States between white and racial/ethnic minorities impacts today's educational inequality. The enslavement of African Americans removed the access to education for generations. Once the legal abolishment of slavery was enacted, racial stigma remained. Social, economic, and political barriers held blacks in a position of subordination. Freedmen's schools existed but they focused on maintaining African Americans in servitude, not an enriching academic prosperity. The United States then experienced legal separation in schools between whites and blacks. Schools were supposed to receive equal resources but realistically, they did not. It was not until 1968 that Black students in the South had universal secondary education. Research reveals that there was a shrinking of inequality between racial groups from 1970-1988, but since then the gap has grown again.

Latinos and American Indians experienced similar educational repression in the past but the impact continues today. Latinos have been systematically shut out of educational opportunities at all levels. Evidence suggests that Latinos experienced this educational repression in the United States as far back as 1848. American Indians experienced the enforcement of missionary schools that emphasized the assimilation into white culture and society. Even after assimilation, those American Indians experienced discrimination in white society and often a rejection by their tribe. It created a group that could not truly benefit even if they gained an equal education.

American universities are separated into various classes, with a few institutions, such as the Ivy League schools shown to be more exclusive than the others. Among these exclusive institutions, educational inequality is extreme, with only 6% and 3% of their students coming from the bottom two income quintiles.

Resources
Access to resources play an important role in educational inequality. In addition to the resources from family mentioned earlier, access to proper nutrition and health care influence the cognitive development of children. Children who come from poor families experience this inequality, which puts them at a disadvantage from the start. Not only important are resources students may or may not receive from family, but schools themselves vary greatly in the resources they give their students. On December 2, 2011, the U.S. Department of Education released that school districts are unevenly distributing funds, which are disproportionately underfunding low-income students. This is holding back money from the schools that are in great need. High poverty schools have less-qualified teachers with a much higher turnover rate. In every subject area, students in high poverty schools are more likely than other students to be taught by teachers without even a minor in their subject matter. Better resources allows for the reduction of classroom size, which research has proven improves test scores. It also increases the number of after school and summer programs—these are very beneficial to poor children because it not only combats the increased loss of skill over them summer but keeps them out of unsafe neighborhoods and combats the drop-out rate.

This lack of resources is directly linked to ethnicity and race. Black and Latino students are three times more likely than whites to be in high poverty schools and twelve times as likely to be in schools that are predominantly poor. Also, in schools that are composed of 90% or above of minorities, only one half of the teachers are certified in the subjects they teach. As the number of white students increase in a school, funding tends to increase as well. From the family resources side, 10% of white children are raised in poverty, while 37% of Latino children are and 42% of African American children are. Research indicates that when resources are equal, Black students are more likely to continue their education into college than their white counterparts.

Property tax dilemma
In the United States, schools are funded by local property taxes. Because of this, the more affluent a neighborhood, the higher the funding for that school district. Although this situation seems favorable, the problem emerges when the equation is reversed. In neighborhoods inhabited by predominantly working and lower-class families, properties are less expensive, and so property taxes are much lower than those in affluent neighborhoods. Consequently, funding for the school districts to which working and lower class children are assigned is also significantly lower than the funding for the school districts to which children of affluent families are assigned. Thus, students in working and lower class schools do not receive the same quality of education and access to resources as do students from affluent families. The reality of the situation is that distribution of resources for schools is based on the socioeconomic status of the parents of the students. As a result, the U.S. educational system significantly aids in widening the gap between the rich and the poor. This gap has increased, rather than decreased, over the past few decades due in part to a lack of social mobility.

State conflicts
Within fragile state, children often are subject to inadequate education. The poor educational quality within these states is believed to be a result of four main challenges. First, the coordination gaps between the governmental actors. These actors include development, humanitarian, security, and disaster risk reduction. Second, the policy maker's low priority on educational policy. Third, fragile states often have limited financing. As a result, they do not have the adequate funds to finance a quality education system. Fourth, there is a lack of attention placed on quality.

Measuring Educational Inequality
In the last decade, tests have been administered throughout the world to gather information about students, the schools they attend, and their educational achievements. These tests include the Organization for Economic and Co-Operational Development’s Program of International Student Assessment and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement’s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. To calculate the different test parameters in each country and calculate a standard score, the scores of these tests are put through Item Response Theory models. Once standardized, analysts can begin looking at education through the lens of achievement rather than looking at attainment. Through looking at achievement, the analysts can objectively examine educational inequality throughout the globe.

Social mobility
Social mobility refers to the movement in class status from one generation to another. It is related to the "rags to riches" notion that anyone, with hard work and determination, has the ability to move upward no matter what background they come from. Contrary to that notion, however, sociologists and economists have concluded that, although exceptions are heard of, social mobility has remained stagnant and even decreased over the past thirty years. Some of the decrease in social mobility may be explained by the stratified educational system. Since the educational system forces low-income families to place their children into less-than-ideal school systems, those children are typically not presented with the same opportunities and educational motivation as are students from well-off families, resulting in patterns of repeated intergenerational educational choices for parent and child, also known as decreased or stagnant social mobility.

Remedies
There are a variety of efforts by countries to assist in increasing the availability of quality education for all children.

Assessment
Based on input from more than 1,700 individuals in 118 countries, UNESCO and the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution have co-convened the Learning Metrics Task Force. The task force aims to shift the focus from access to access plus learning. They discovered through assessment, the learning and progress of students in individual countries can be measured. Through the testing, governments can assess the quality of their education programs, refine the areas that need improvement, and ultimately increase their student's success.

Education for All Act
The Education for All Act or EFA is global commitment to provide quality basic education for all children, youth, and adults. In 2000, 164 governments pledged to achieve education for all at the World Education Forum. There are 6 decided upon goals designed to reach the goal of Education for All by 2015. The entities working together to achieve these goals include governments, multilateral and development agencies, civil society and the private sector. UNESCO is responsible for coordinating the partnerships. Although progress has been made, some countries are providing more support than others. Also, there is need to strengthen overall political commitment as well as strengthening the needed resources.

Global Partnership for Education
Global Partnership for Education or GPE functions to create a global effort to reduce educational inequality with a focus on the poorest countries. GPE is the only international effort with their particular focus on supporting countries' efforts to educate their youth from primary through secondary education. Main goals of the partnership include providing educational access to each child, insuring each child masters basic numeracy and literacy skills, increasing the ability for governments to provide quality education for all, and providing a safe space for all children to learn in. They are a partnership of donor and developing countries but the developing countries shape their own educational strategy based upon their personal priorities. When constructing these priorities, GPE serves to support and facilitate access to financial and technical resources. Successes of GPE include helping nearly 22 million children get to school, equipping 52,600 classrooms and training 300,000 teachers.

Global evidence
Education inequality varies across national contexts.

UK
Evidence from the British birth cohort studies has illustrated the powerful influence of family socio-economic background on children's educational attainment. These differences emerge early in childhood, and continue to grow throughout the school years.

Bangladesh
Today, their education system includes more than 100,000 schools run by public, private, NGO and religious providers. The schools are overseen by the governmental bureaucracy's ministries. Their system is centralized and overseen by the subdisticts, also known as Upazilas. During the past two decades, Bangladesh expanded their education system through new national policies and increased their pro-poor spending. As a result, the gross enrollment rate in the poorest quintile of upazilas is 101 percent. Also, the poorest quintile spending per child was 30 percent higher than the wealthiest quintile.

Educational inequalities still exist in Bangladesh despite the increased spending. They do not have consistent learning outcomes across the upazilas. In almost 2/3 of upazilas, the dropout rate is over 30 percent. . They have difficulty acquiring quality teachers and 97 percent of preprimary and primary students are in overcrowded classrooms. These disparities are a result of a combination of problems, including spending and investments favored at more wealthy areas.

Inequality in higher education
Africa, in general, has suffered from decreased spending on higher education programs. As a result, they are unable to obtain moderate to high enrollment and there is minimal research output. .

Within South Africa, there are numerous factors that effect the quality of tertiary education. The country inherited class, race and gender inequality in the social, political, and economic spheres during the Apartheid. The 1994 constitution emphasizes higher education as useful for human resource development and of great importance to any economic and social transitions. However, they are still fighting to overcome the colonialism and racism in intellectual spaces.

Funding from the government has a major stake in the educational quality received. As a result of declining government support, the average class size in South Africa is growing. The increased class size limits student-teacher interactions, therefore further hindering students with low problem solving and critical thinking skills. In an article by Meenal Shrivastava and Sanjiv Shrivastava, the argument is made that in large class sizes “have ramifications for developing countries where higher education where higher education is a core element in the economic and societal development”. These ramifications are shown to include lower student performance and information retention.

With declining funding and a will to serve more students, there is a growing shift away from traditional higher education institutions to Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). These classes are run through content sharing, videos, online forums and exams. The MOOCs are free which allow for many more students to take part in the classes, however the programs are created by global north countries, therefore inhibiting individuals in the global south from creating their own innovations.

Property tax dilemma
In the United States, schools are funded by local property taxes. Because of this, the more affluent a neighborhood, the higher the funding for that school district. Although this situation seems favorable, the problem emerges when the equation is reversed. In neighborhoods inhabited by predominantly working and lower-class families, properties are less expensive, and so property taxes are much lower than those in affluent neighborhoods. Consequently, funding for the school districts to which working and lower class children are assigned is also significantly lower than the funding for the school districts to which children of affluent families are assigned. Thus, students in working and lower class schools do not receive the same quality of education and access to resources as do students from affluent families. The reality of the situation is that distribution of resources for schools is based on the socioeconomic status of the parents of the students. As a result, the U.S. educational system significantly aids in widening the gap between the rich and the poor. This gap has increased, rather than decreased, over the past few decades due in part to a lack of social mobility.

Wage gaps
Wage gaps for paid work is one example of disadvantage and oppression based on gender. Although the differences are improving, issues still persist in the United States and across the globe.

Other factors
Social immobility expresses itself in lower class children who follow in the same path as their parents, mainly not obtaining higher education. The result of such choices is that the poor remain poor and the rich go to college. Reasons for poor children opting to not pursue higher education range across a variety of different explanations. Lower class children have not grown up with the same expectations of life because these have not been instilled in them by their parents, or most importantly, by the educational system. The U.S. educational system fails its lower-income students by not providing them with the same access to resources and opportunities as it does to its more affluent students. Furthermore, several studies have shown that programs such as gifted education and tracking further manage to separate those with higher level skills from those with lower level skills, which often happens to be the rich from the poor. In fact, the vast majority of children in gifted student programs happen to be middle-class Caucasians. This is not to say that poor students are not as smart as rich students, but it does imply that they have not received the same opportunities in childhood to develop certain skills. Middle and upper class students grow up with parents who foster their intellectual and educational development by engaging in a child raising approach known as concerted cultivation. This approach values education and learning, and parents engaged in this form of parenting value visits to the museum, extracurricular activities, homework, tutoring, and reading to their children. Furthermore, middle and upper-class parents can afford to place their children in significantly better childcare centers before they enter grade school. As the Carolina Abecedarian Project found, these are essential elements in future educational and life successes.

Evidence for the unequal distribution of college students' socioeconomic status can be seen by examining college enrollment rates and demographics. One study examined the top 146 colleges in the U.S. and found that the average student representation on the colleges was the following: 75% of students came from socioeconomic backgrounds consistent with the richest 25% of the population. Less than 5% of students came from the poorest 25% of the population.

International comparisons
Compared to other nations, the United States is among some of the highest spenders on education per student behind only Switzerland and Norway. The per-pupil spending has even increased in recent years but the academic achievement of students has remained stagnant. The Swedish educational system is one such system that attempts to equalize students and make sure every child has an equal chance to succeed. Some ways that Sweden is accomplishing these goals is by making sure every child can go to daycare affordably. Of the total cost of childcare, parents pay no more than 18% for their child; the remaining 82% is paid for by various government agencies and municipalities. In 2002, a "maximum-fee" system was introduced in Sweden that states that costs for childcare may be no greater than 3% of one's income for the first child, 2% for the second child, 1% for the third child, and free of charge for the fourth child in pre-school. 97.5% of children age 1-5 attend these public daycare centers. Also, a new law was recently introduced that states that all four and five year old children can attend day care for free. Since practically all students, no matter what their socioeconomic background, attend the same daycare centers, equalization alongside educational development begins early and in the public sphere. Furthermore, parental leave consists of 12 months paid leave (80% of wage) whereas one month is awarded solely to the father in the form of "use it or lose it". This results in the privilege and affordability of staying home and bonding with one's child for the first year of life. Due to this affordability, less than 200 children in the entire country of Sweden under the age of 1 are placed in child care.

Stratification in the educational system is further diminished by providing all Swedish citizens and legal residents with the option of choosing which school they want their children to be placed in, regardless of what neighborhood they reside in or what property taxes they pay. Additionally, the Swedish government not only provides its citizens with a free college education, but also with an actual monthly allowance for attending school and college.

Together, these privileges allow for all Swedish children to have access to the same resources. A similar system can be found in France, where free, full-day child care centers known as "écoles maternelles" enroll close to 100% of French children ages 3–5 years old. In Denmark, children from birth to age six are enrolled in childcare programs that are available at one-fifth the total costs, where the rest is covered by public funding.