A distributional analysis of upper secondary school performance

We examine the relationship between the distribution of upper secondary school performance and a range of individual and school level characteristics using unconditional quantile regression methods and data from Ireland. We find that determinants such as social class, maternal unemployment, extra private tuition, and working part-time have differential effects for low and high ability students and that important insights are lost by focusing on the conditional mean. The implication is that while certain factors can impact on whether or not a student is likely to proceed to higher education, other factors may affect where students go and what they study.