these countries not only have large proportions of students performing at the highest levels of reading proficiency but also relatively few students at the lower proficiency levels countries where the impact of socioeconomic background on reading skills is high include new zealand france austria and hungary figure like reading skills civic competencies too are strongly influenced by socioeconomic background equity in learning opportunities and outcomes among oecd countries the reading gap amounts to score points equivalent to more than half a proficiency level or one year of schooling