Goldsmith, Pat Antonio
Researchers: Pat Antonio Goldsmith
University Affiliation: University of Wisconsin-Parkside
Email: goldsmip@uwp.edu
Research Question:
What is the effect of proportion Latino on the test scores of white, black, and Latino high school students?
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Sociological Perspectives
Journal Entry: Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 83-105
Year: 2003
Findings:
- Results reveal that segregation concentrates disadvantages for Latinos and Blacks, but surprisingly, proportion Latino tends to positively influence test scores over the high school years.
- Proportion Black, in contrast, does not affect test scores except for a negative effective for Blacks in science.
- Predominantly Black schools stand out by having a higher percentage of students in single parent families and predominantly White schools.
- Models indicate proportion Latino and proportion Black do not influence the chance of dropping out as long as control variables are included in the models.
- Measures suggest predominately Latino schools are of lower quality.
- Predominantly Latino schools cluster students of immigrant parents, and students learn more in schools with proportionately more immigrant parents (at least in the subjects of reading and history).
- The effects of proportion Latino are more positive than the effects of proportion Black and that part of the reason this occurs is that segregated Latino schools bring together many students of immigrant parents.
- The magnitude of the coefficients indicates that proportion Latino has a positive effect on Latino’s reading and science test scores while it does not affect whites’ reading and science test scores.
- Proportion Latino has a positive effect on Latinos’ test scores in all subjects, although the positive effect observed on science test scores only exists net of neighborhood and class size differences. Proportion Latino also has a positive effect on blacks’ and whites’ test scores in math and history but not in reading and science.
- Proportion Black has a negative effect on blacks’ science test scores but has no effect on Whites’ test scores.
- Proportion Latino usually has a positive effect on test scores and proportion Black usually has no effect. Specifically, there is a positive effect of proportion Latino on Latinos’ test scores in all subjects (although weaker in science). This positive effect extends to both less and more acculturated Latinos, and it extends to Blacks’ and Whites’ test scores in math and history.
- Findings suggest that when immigrant parents are clustered together, as they are in some segregated Latino schools, then students throughout the school benefit. This could explain why Blacks’ and Whites’ test scores sometimes improve as the schools’ proportion f Latino rises.
- The analysis shows no effect of the schools’ proportion of single-parent families on test scores.
- Researchers should not treat the effects of proportion Latino and proportion black as identical.
- Integration of Latinos with Whites would reduce some of the inequalities between schools, it would not hurt and in some areas would help the test score of whites, but it would hurt Latinos unless some of the helpful features of predominantly Latino schools could be copied.