Abstract:

The importance of educational opportunity inequality has been increasing within the context of education systems during recent years. In addition to quality in education, opportunity equality is among the significant paradigms in countries of high educational performance. Thus, it is of utmost importance to research the relationship between socio-economic characteristics of the students and achievement based on opportunity equality. Especially to remove the gap observed in Turkish literature is among the objectives of the present study. The main objective of the study is to assess the socio-demographic characteristics that affect the achievement of students in mathematics within the context of educational opportunity equality for PISA 2012 Turkey sample. Data analysis was conducted with quantile regression (QR) and classical linear regression (OLS). As a result, it was determined that students’ family background, familiarity with information and communication technology and school climate were affective on mathematics achievement. It was observed that as parentel education, educational resources at home, and index of familty wealth increased, mathematics achievement increased as well. It was also observed that time of computer use had a negative effect on achievement in mathematics. Furthermore, study findings identified that the achievement of male students was higher than females.