1) To what degree do student attainment, academic and family background, and school factors vary in low, medium, and high SEC schools? 2) What is the total effect of socioeconomic composition (SEC) on each attainment outcome and to what degree do student factors, peer influences, and school effects mediate the SEC-attainment associations? 3) Is the effect of SEC consistent for students from different SES and ethnic backgrounds?
Current Selections
ClearThe Effect of High School Segregation on Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills in the United States
1) What is the extent of racial, socioeconomic, and linguistic segregation among U.S. high schools? 2) To what degree are student’s cognitive and non-cognitive skills due to school effects and to individual differences among students? 3) What are the relative magnitudes of the effects of socioeconomic, racial, and linguistic segregation on cognitive and non-cognitive skills compared with the effects of student socioeconomic status, ethnic background, and English language status? 4) To what degree does each of three school mechanisms (school inputs, peer influences, and school practices) mediate the effects of school segregation?
Do School Districts Matter?
1) What is the influence of school districts on student achievement relative to the influence of schools, teachers, and individual differences among students? 2) Are there differences among school districts in their contribution to student achievement that are large enough to be relevant for policy? 3) Can districts be categorized based on patterns of influence on student academic achievement in ways that would inform efforts to improve district performance 4) What are the distinctive features of exceptional districts?
Gender and ethnic differences in precollege mathematics course work related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pathways
How do students of different ethnicity and gender groups differ in advanced mathematics course-taking and in STEM major choice? What student and school factors can explain these differences? How does high school advanced mathematics course-taking account for disparities in STEM major choice?
School Choice and Educational Inequality in South Korea
1) Does the High School Equalization Policy (HSEP) relate to the separation of low and high SES students between schools? 2) Does school’s socioeconomic composition relate to student achievement?
Classroom Composition and Racial Differences in Opportunities to Learn
How much variation is there in topic coverage and use of instructional tasks among advanced mathematical courses with the same title? To what extent is there classroom level variation and conditioning on classroom level minority composition for courses of the same title?
A Comparison of Academic Achievement and Adherence to the Common School Ideal in Public and Catholic School
1) Does the academic advantage that was observed in Catholic high schools more than two decades ago continue to hold for contemporary students in Catholic middle schools? 2) How closely do difference school sectors adhere to the common school ideal?
Pathways to a STEMM Profession
This analysis focuses on differences in pathways to a science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine
(STEMM) professions.
Pathways to STEMM Professions for Students From Noncollege Homes
This analysis focuses on differences in pathways to a science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine
(STEMM) profession between households in which no parent has a baccalaureate and households in which at least one parent has a baccalaureate.
Long-Run Impacts of School Desegregation & School Quality on Adult Attainments NBER #16664
What are the long-run impacts of court-ordered school desegregation plans on adult attainments?
Teacher Effects on Minority and Disadvantaged Students' Grade Four Achievement
Examines the differential effects of teachers on female, minority, and low-socioeconomic status (SES) students’ achievement in Grade 4.
Trajectories of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering Students by Race and Gender
This paper describes the outcomes for students matriculating in and migrating into electrical engineering (EE) and computer engineering (CpE).
Accuracy and Inaccuracy in Teachers' Perceptions of Young Children's Cognitive Abilities: The Role of Child Background and Classroom Context
1. Are teachers more or less accurate in predicting the cognitive skills of students with particular sociodemographic backgrounds? One would expect a certain amount of inaccuracy in teacher perceptions of their students’ skills. But is this error in teacher estimates randomly distributed, or is it systematically related to children’s socio-demographic characteristics?
2. To what extent do teacher characteristics and classroom and school contexts explain teacher perceptual accuracy? For example, are experienced teachers’ better judges of their students’ skills? Are teacher perceptions more accurate in racially, socioeconomically, or academically homogeneous classrooms? In smaller versus larger classrooms? In public versus private schools?
3. How is teacher accuracy influenced by the interplay between student and teacher or classroom characteristics? For instance, are teachers more accurate in estimating the skills of students with whom they share a racial-ethnic back ground? Are teacher assessments of low-SES children less biased in smaller classrooms?
Academic Achievement Among STEM Aspirants: Why Do Black and Latino Students Earn Lower Grades Than Their White and Asian Counterparts?
Identify the institutional and student-level characteristics that significantly impact the cumulative GPA of graduating seniors, in particular those graduating seniors who entered college with an interest in majoring in STEM.
Indicators of Success in STEM Majors: A Cohort Study
If there were factors attributed to STEM students who graduated that might serve as predictors or indicators of successful navigation in STEM majors?
After Seattle: Social Science Research and Narrowly Tailored School Desegregation Plans
Offer a social science rationale for Justice Kennedy’s view about narrow tailoring issues and suggesting several approaches to desegregation plans that may meet narrow tailoring requirement.
The Racial/Ethnic Composition of Elementary Schools and Young Children's Academic and Socioemotional Functioning
How are racial/ethnic diversity of the student body and racial/ethnic matching (belongingness) between children and their peers related to socioemotional and academic development after students transition into elementary school?
Family and Contextual Socioeconomic Effects Across Seasons: When Do they Matter for the Achievement Growth of Young Children?
School & neighborhood contexts influence on differences in children’s achievement growth during the kindergarten and first-grade years across seasons.
Family, Neighborhood, and School Settings Across Seasons: When Do Socioeconomic Context and Racial Composition Matter for the Reading Achievement Growth of Young Children?
Assess the degree to which social context and race/ethnic composition- in neighborhoods and schools- affect the reading achievement growth of young children.
Increasing Racial Isolation and Test Score Gaps in Mathematics
Analyze associations between the black-white and Latino-white test score gaps and changes in school minority composition.
Schools and Inequality: A Multilevel Analysis of Coleman's Equality of Educational Opportunity Data
Reanalysis and reconceptualization of the Coleman report through a 2-level hierarchical linear model.
Teacher Credentials and Student Achievement in High School. A Cross-Subject Analysis with Student Fixed Effects
Examining the relationship between teacher credentials and student achievement in high schools, especially in the core courses taken early in a student’s high school career.
Does Moving to Better Neighborhoods Lead to Better Schooling Opportunities? Parental School Choice in an Experimental Housing Voucher Program
Understand why the children of families who participated in the Baltimore MTO program did not experience larger gains in achievement.
How Do School Peers Influence Student Educational Outcomes? Theory and Evidence from Economics and Other Social Sciences
Provide a description of a wide range of peer influence theories from psychologists, sociologists, and economists; proposes new theory of group contagion.
The Social Cost of Open Enrollment as a School Choice Policy
Evaluates the effects of three San Diego, California school choice programs on integration by race, student achievement and parental education levels.
Who succeeds in STEM studies? An analysis of Binghamton University undergraduate students
Who is more likely to enter and graduate with a STEM major?
Student and School Predictors of High-Stakes Assessment in Science
This study examined both student and school predictors of science achievement as measured by a high-stakes state test.
Perceived School and Neighborhood Safety, Neighborhood Violence and Academic Achievement in Urban School Children
This study utilizes data obtained from the NIfETy Method, child self-report data related to students’ sense of safety, and standardized test scores to better understand the relationship betweenperceived community and school safety, neighborhood violence and school performance in 3rd-5th graders in a mid-Atlantic urban school system.
Race and Academic Achievement in Racially Diverse High Schools
The authors investigate whether racially diverse high schools offer equality of educational opportunity to students from different racial and ethnic groups. This is examined by measuring the relative representation of minority students in advanced math classes at the beginning of high school and estimating whether and how this opportunity structure limits the level of achievement attained by African American and Latino students by the end of high school.
End of High School Mathematics Attainment: How Did Students Get There?
Explored various kinds of individual and school compositional factors that might produce differences in students’ growth in math and eohs math.
The Sorting Effect of Charter Schools on Student Composition in Traditional Public Schools
This article investigates how Michigan’s charter school policy influences the composition of students by race and socioeconomic status in urban traditional public schools.
Does the SES of the School Matter? An Examination of Socioeconomic Status and Student Achievement Using PISA 2003
The relationship between school SES and student outcomes.
Attrition in STEM Fields at a Liberal Arts College: The Importance of Grades and Pre-Collegiate Preferences
To quantify the important factors responsible for the high attrition rates in STEM majors, particularly in relation to gender.
Housing Policy is School Policy: Economically Integrative Housing Promotes Academic Success in Montgomery Count, Maryland
Examination of elementary school math and reading performances of public housing students from very-low-poverty to moderate-poverty level neighborhoods to determine effects of economic integration on performance.
The Role of Schools, Families, and Psychological Variables on Math Achievement of Black High School Students
- What is the impact of school-, family-, and person-level affective or social psychological variables on math achievement for a nationally representative sample of Black high school students?
Academic Trajectories of Newcomer Immigrant Youth
How do family characteristics, school characteristics, and individual characteristics associated with the academic trajectory of newcomer immigrant students affect their performance?
Legal Rights, Local Wrongs: When Community Control Collides with Educational Equity
Explores the normative and political difficulties experienced by racially diverse schools that are implementing detracking reform.
Academic Achievement in the First Year of College: Evidence of the Pervasive Effects of the High School Context
1) What are the unique effects of students’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, precollege academic performance, capital acquisition, and dimensions of the high school context on first year academic performance in college?
2) Do the effects of the high school context differ by students’ demographic or socioeconomic background characteristics?
Can Interdistrict Choice Boost Student Achievement? The Case of Connecticut's Interdistrict Magnet School Program
Presents evidence that interdistrict magnet schools have provided students from Connecticut’s central cities access to less racially and economically isolated educational environments; estimates impact of attending magnet school on achievement.
Trust as a Mediator of the Relationships Between Poverty, Racial Composition, and Academic Achievement: Evidence from Michigan's Public Elementary Schools
Test the relationship btw trust and achievement / assess whether links btw academic achievement, SES, racial composition are mediated by trust levels
Adolescents' Educational Outcomes: Racial and Ethnic Variations in Peer Network Importance
Examines how peer networks impact educational achievement and attainment.
New Evidence about Brown v. Board of Education: The Complex Effects of School Racial Composition on Achievement
Examines how school racial composition affects scholastic achievement and, thus, the black-white achievement gap.
The Black-White-Other Test Score Gap: Academic Achievement Among Mixed Race Adolescents
Test theories of racial differences in achievement among mono-racial and multi-racial high school students.
Before or After the Bell? School Context and Neighborhood Effects on Student Achievement
Explores the relative effects of school and neighborhood characteristics on student achievement.
Ability Grouping Practices in Elementary School and African American/Hispanic Achievement
Examines the impact of ability grouping practices on the achievement gains among African Americans and Hispanics during elementary school.
School Context and Charter School Achievement: A Framework for Understanding the Performance "Black Box"
Explores the relationship between charter school racial composition, school environments, and student achievement.