Correlation coefficients between student reading or mathematics score and various measures of student social class, for U.S. and six comparison countries, PISA 2009

 Country Sample size Books in the home (BH) BH + mother’s education BH + highest parental education ESCS only
 PISA 2009 reading score
Canada 21,910 0.35 0.36 0.36 0.29
Finland 5,647 0.35 0.37 0.37 0.28
Korea 4,823 0.34 0.35 0.37 0.33
France 3,935 0.48 0.49 0.50 0.40
Germany 4,106 0.48 0.50 0.51 0.43
U.K. 10,984 0.47 0.47 0.47 0.36
U.S. 5,054 0.42 0.44 0.44 0.41
PISA 2009 mathematics score
Canada 22,115 0.34 0.35 0.36 0.32
Finland 5,705 0.32 0.35 0.36 0.28
Korea 4,919 0.40 0.40 0.42 0.37
France 4,032 0.49 0.50 0.51 0.45
Germany 4,269 0.47 0.49 0.51 0.46
U.K. 11,211 0.47 0.47 0.47 0.40
U.S. 5,084 0.42 0.44 0.45 0.44

Source: Authors' analysis of OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2009 database for each country

View the underlying data on epi.org.