Grade retention and academic outcomes: Evidence from Brazil

Abstract

Despite the widespread use of grade retention in Latin American countries, the literature on the effects of this practice on academic outcomes remains inconclusive. This paper, using a comprehensive longitudinal (2012-2017) student-level dataset from Rio de Janeiro, the second-largest municipal basic education system in Brazil, aims to fill this gap. By employing a difference-in-differences approach with student’s fixed effects, we find that grade retention has a positive impact on students’ short-term learning results. These results remain consistent across various robustness checks. Our findings suggest that part of this effect may be attributable to students’ fear of repeating a grade or the support given to those who are close to the threshold of repeating. Moreover, our results indicate that the classroom placement of retained students is not responsible for explaining our effects. This study contributes to the existing literature on grade retention by providing insights into how repeating a grade can lead to improved performance for the students who are held back.