Covay, Elizabeth
Researchers: Elizabeth Covay
University Affiliation: University of Notre Dame
Email: ecovay@nd.edu
Research Question:
Uses the institutional perspective to explore Black-White differences in high school course taking.
Published: 0
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: N/A
Journal Entry: Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting
Year: 2008
Findings:
- Net of background characteristics, Black students, compared to White students, are more likely to take advanced math courses, especially in schools that are predominately minority, as would be expected by the institutional perspective.
- Black students tend to gain fewer returns from taking advanced math courses, with a marked difference in gains as the percent minority within the school increases.
- Black students are underrepresented in upper level math courses, this would suggest that Black students have fewer opportunities to learn because there are fewer Black students in these advanced math courses.
- As the percent minority within a school increases, students tend to make fewer gains on the math tests from 10th to 12th grade.
- Overall, White students tend to make greater gains as the highest math level taken increases, irrelevant of the racial composition of the school. On the other hand, Black students’ gains are related to both their highest level math taken and the racial composition of the school.