摘要：Um áratugaskeið hafa yfirvöld menntamála hér á landi kynnt niðurstöður samræmdra prófa og PISA-rannsóknar OECD þannig að búseta sé önnur lykilbreytan til skýringar á námsframmistöðu ásamt kyni. Framleiðsla stjórnsýslu menntamála á þekkingu á tengslum búsetu og námsárangurs var skoðuð, rætt er hvernig skilgreiningar móta sýn á búsetumuninn og niðurstöður rannsókna á tengslum búsetu og þjóðfélagsstöðu raktar. Gerð var athugun á því að hve miklu leyti þjóðfélagsstaða skýrir muninn milli landsbyggðar og höfuðborgarsvæðis á frammistöðu á PISA í lesskilningi, læsi á stærðfræði og læsi á náttúruvísindi í fimm umferðum PISA, frá 2003 til 2015. Algengast var að lítil eða engin tengsl væru milli búsetu og námsframmistöðu þegar þjóðfélagsstaða nemenda hefur verið tekin með í reikninginn samkvæmt fjölbreytuaðhvarfsgreiningum. Þó voru dæmi um að þjóðfélagsstaða skýri ekki búsetumuninn. Búsetusamanburður stjórnsýslu menntamála, sem gerður er í þágu markmiða um framfarir í menntun, gerir ekki ráð fyrir mismunandi þjóðfélagsstöðu nemenda og nærir þannig þjóðarímyndun um vanmáttugt skólastarf á landsbyggðunum.
其他摘要：In the Icelandic educational debate, it is a discursive theme that students achieve less if they live in the part of the country defined by the educational authorities as rural, or outlying regions, compared to the capital area, defined as urban. For a long time, the educational authorities have presented the results of national examinations and the OECD PISA programme in such a way that rural versus urban residence and gender are key parameters for explaining learning outcomes. This has fuelled a national imagery (Roberts & Green, 2013) of a uniform, deprived, and powerless rural area, calling for corresponding inferences on education. Conversely, it has been known all along inside the educational establishment that diverse variables in students’ social background explain the difference to some extent and they have called for caution in inferring about this divergence. The research question of this article is whether there is a rural-urban difference in learning outcomes between students living in rural and urban regions when the social status of students is accounted for. Research on rural-urban differences in learning outcomes varies in definitions of spatiality (residency) and measurements of student performance. The very definitions of rural and urban are debated, and the importance of precise definition is clear with regard to how research pictures the subject matter. The pragmatic, functionalistic and untheorized approach by the bureaucracy of educational authorities is, in this article, contrasted to theories on symbolic violence and cultural capital (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990), and theories on the production of oppressive social space (Lefebvre, 1991). The theme of social background of students for the purpose of explaining a ruralurban difference in education emerges in the research literature. Variables such as family position on the job market, parental education, immigrant status, and gender are widely used, often applying multivariate statistical methods. Some of the research finds that rural-urban differences remain despite the effects of students’ social background having been analysed. PISA is triennial international large-scale assessment with a repeated cross-sectional design, enabling trend studies. PISA is the only regular quantitative investigation into education in Iceland which takes the social status of students into account. The link between performance on PISA by rural or urban residence was examined for mathematics, reading, and science literacy for the rounds of PISA in 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2015 (min. N = 3350 to max. N = 3789). Student social status is measured by the PISA index of economic, social and cultural status, ESCS, a rescaled version by OECD for trend studies. Data was obtained from the OECD website. The conclusion of regression analysis is that usually there is negligible connection between residence and performance on PISA when the social status of students is accounted for. There are, however, instances where rural-urban differences remain when taking social status into account, and differences between the regions appear to occur as statistically significant when research is conducted for one year. The notion of urban advantage (OECD, 2013) holds in about a fourth of cases investigated. Gender difference explains the performance in reading to a similar extent as social status. Gender, however, has limited relation to students’ performance in literacy in mathematics and sciences. As expected, gender has no influence on the link between rural/urban and performance. The regression models show up to medium effect (R²) of social status on performance. The link between social status and performance is stable, but to some extent a fading effect. There are indications of societal convergence between rural and urban students regarding social status and educational outcomes. The overemphasis by educational authorities on rural-urban differences is discussed as a by-product of bureaucratic oppression, and as a symbolic violence of the bureaucracy as a legitimating principle of control in the country by the capital city. There is a need for further research involving awareness of social realities in rural and urban areas, within communities and in education.
