Social Promotion in Primary School: Immediate and Cumulated Effects on Attainment

Résumé

Does social promotion perpetuate shortfalls in student achievement, or can low-achieving students catch up with their peers when they are pushed ahead? Using data from Brazilian primary schools, this paper presents evidence of substantial catch up among socially promoted students. After documenting sorting across schools in response to the policy, in particular away from gatedpromotion private schools, we show that social promotion cycles has no significant effect on municipality enrolment figures or on the percentage of students.