Educational inequality remains a critical challenge across Latin America, with significant learning gaps persisting, particularly among students from marginalized and impoverished communities. Stark inequities in access to quality education and its academic benefits disproportionately affect disadvantaged students, perpetuating exclusion and segregation. This study leverages data from the 2019 Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (ERCE 2019) to analyze educational outcomes, focusing on the challenges faced by students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and Indigenous communities. Findings reveal that the mathematics achievement gap between students of low and high socioeconomic status widens from third to sixth grade, with Brazil and Uruguay exhibiting the largest disparities. Similar gaps in language and science achievement are evident, particularly in Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay. Indigenous students face additional systemic barriers, with Costa Rica and Panama showing the most pronounced disparities. Using the Oaxaca-Blinder Decomposition method, the study identifies that mathematics and language gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students are partially explained by non-observable factors such as discrimination and bias.
