Abstract
Education equity is achieved when all students have the ability to fully develop their talents and interests, regardless of where they live, how much money their parents earn, or where they go to school. While no country has reached complete equity, some education systems are closer to meeting the goal than others. Australia’s performance on international tests of student achievement is causing the Australian education system to be seen as high quality but only moderate equity. In this chapter we provide an overview of the ways in which school socioeconomic composition, one of the main drivers of educational inequality, is associated with inequalities in educational opportunities, experiences and outcomes in Australia. We draw on previously published work as well as report the findings of our secondary analyses from the 2009 cycle of the Programme for Student International Assessment (PISA) to show how educational opportunities, experiences and outcomes vary by school socioeconomic context. The findings show that schools in Australia are highly segregated, and that this segregation is accompanied by large inequalities in educational opportunities, experiences and outcomes.