Comparing PISA With GDP Per Capita In Spain And Italy

Commenter M.G. Miles posted a link to a map she made showing 2006 GDP per capita in the Eurozone (plus Switzerland and the UK) at the largest subnational level.

Since she offered it up for comparison, I thought I’d show the GDP per capita and PISA maps side by side for both Spain and Italy:

I must say, it is an interesting comparison.  While there is a clear correlation between the test scores and the economic indicator, there are definitely exceptions and outliers.  Furthermore, many of the outlier provinces have interesting characteristics that could act as confounding factors.

Mapping The 2009 PISA Results For Spain And Italy

At her blog, hbdchick has a discussion of the north-south division in Spain where she asks if there are any differences in IQ that show up.  I suggested looking through the 2009 PISA results, which she did.  To follow up, I decided to map out the results for Spain and Italy.  For each map, the pure black is 400 and pure white is 525 (a scale I came up with before I realized that Lombardy had a 526 average science score).  To start, here are the maps for Reading scores:

It is worth noting that PISA did not release the scores for three autonomous communities in Spain: Extremadura, Castile-La Mancha, and Valencia, which form a band immediately to the north of Andalusia and Murcia. I’ve made those three mostly transparent.