The impact of territorial and demographic factors on academic performance in public schools across Catalonia

Abstract

Decades-old studies found students in schools from small municipalities academically lagging behind urban peers due to location and economic factors, but recent data reveals some schools in these areas now match or surpass urban school performance gains. For this reason our study examined the influence of territorial and demographic size on academic achievement in public schools in Catalonia. The data for this analysis were obtained from the publicly accessible database of the Department of Education, which contains the results of the assessments of basic skills and knowledge at the end of primary education from 2009 to 2023. Advanced statistical methods were applied to explore the relationship between academic achievement and demographic variables, such as population size and the territorial area of the students’ municipality of residence. The results demonstrated a significant correlation, but of limited magnitude, between territorial size and academic performance in the subjects evaluated.