{"id":14266,"date":"2026-09-23T15:33:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T13:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webecpol.esade.edu\/?post_type=publicaciones&#038;p=14266"},"modified":"2026-09-23T15:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T13:33:09","slug":"explaining-the-learning-decline-in-pisa-2025-by-socioeconomic-quartiles-through-methodological-changes","status":"publish","type":"publicaciones","link":"http:\/\/webecpol.esade.edu\/en\/publications\/explaining-the-learning-decline-in-pisa-2025-by-socioeconomic-quartiles-through-methodological-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"Explaining the learning decline in PISA 2025 by socioeconomic quartiles through methodological changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Working paper in collaboration with Innovamat Research Lab<\/em><\/p>\n<p>PISA 2025 Volume I (OECD 2026a) reports that the socioeconomic gap narrowed between 2022 and 2025 because advantaged students declined most \u2014 \u201c<em>a new phenomenon of affluent students who struggle academically<\/em>\u201d. However, this pattern is explained by the changes in how the index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS) was computed in 2022 and 2025, not by changes in students\u2019 performance: the home possessions index removed the book-type items most related to achievement in the 2025 edition and replaced them with living conditions items less correlated to learning achievement, thereby changing which students are classified in the top socioeconomic quartile. By computing an alternative harmonized ESCS index that ensures comparability across years, the top\u2013bottom gap in mathematics increases by 1.6 points across 36 OECD systems, instead of the decline of 11 points reported in OECD (2026a). In practice, this reclassification implies that the number of countries with a statistically significant narrowing of the mathematics gap between the top and bottom ESCS quartiles falls from 19 to one. The published narrowing is also substantially attenuated in science and reading, and this attenuation is robust across specifications. When extended to the 2015\u20132025 period, we observe that the true ESCS learning gap remained broadly stable, if anything widening slightly over the last decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Working paper in collaboration with Innovamat Research Lab PISA 2025 Volume I (OECD 2026a) reports that the socioeconomic gap narrowed between 2022 and 2025 because advantaged students declined most \u2014 \u201ca new phenomenon of affluent students who struggle academically\u201d. However, this pattern is explained by the changes in how the index of economic, social and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14252,"template":"","acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Explaining the learning decline in PISA 2025 by socioeconomic quartiles through methodological changes - Center for Economic Policy - EsadeEcPol<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/webecpol.esade.edu\/en\/publications\/explaining-the-learning-decline-in-pisa-2025-by-socioeconomic-quartiles-through-methodological-changes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Explaining the learning decline in PISA 2025 by socioeconomic quartiles through methodological changes - Center for Economic Policy - EsadeEcPol\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Working paper in collaboration with Innovamat Research Lab PISA 2025 Volume I (OECD 2026a) reports that the socioeconomic gap narrowed between 2022 and 2025 because advantaged students declined most \u2014 \u201ca new phenomenon of affluent students who struggle academically\u201d. However, this pattern is explained by the changes in how the index of economic, social and [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/webecpol.esade.edu\/en\/publications\/explaining-the-learning-decline-in-pisa-2025-by-socioeconomic-quartiles-through-methodological-changes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Center for Economic Policy - EsadeEcPol\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/webecpol.esade.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/PISA2025_WP_figura1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1458\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"922\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@esadeecpol\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/webecpol.esade.edu\/en\/publications\/explaining-the-learning-decline-in-pisa-2025-by-socioeconomic-quartiles-through-methodological-changes\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/webecpol.esade.edu\/en\/publications\/explaining-the-learning-decline-in-pisa-2025-by-socioeconomic-quartiles-through-methodological-changes\/\",\"name\":\"Explaining the learning decline in PISA 2025 by socioeconomic quartiles through methodological changes - 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