Student performance, school differentiation, and world cultures: Evidence from PISA 2009

PISA 2009 data were used to identify patterns of differences and similarities among PISA participating countries/economies. The concept of cultural clusters was used to show patterns of differences and similarities within and across country clusters in two indicators – average student performance and school differentiations (measured by proportion of variance in student test scores explained by schools). Results revealed striking similarities among countries within many cultural clusters, while significant dispersion was found in others, especially among Eastern Europe countries. Regression analyses indicated that cultural clusters explain the majority of variance in average student performance and school differentiations across countries, suggesting that culture is an important factor when comparing and contrasting different school systems.