Blau, Judith, Lamb, Vicky, Stearns, Elizabeth, & Pellerin, Lisa
Researchers: Elizabeth StearnsJudith BlauLisa PellerinVicky Lamb
University Affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Email: judith_blau@unc.edu
Research Question:
Predict how neighborhood characteristics and measures of social problems affect gains on achievement tests between 10th and 12th grades.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Sociology of Education
Journal Entry: Vol. 74, No. 2, pp.121-138
Year: 2001
Findings:
- Context matters little for mathematics, science and reading.
- Relatively open and fluid neighborhoods are conducive to social learning and do not adversely affect learning in math, science and reading.
- Large economic differences between whites and non whites impair the social learning of affluent presumably because adolescents have little contact with people who are different from them.
- There appear to be genuine catch-up effects among those with relatively low scores in the 10th grade who preserve rather than drop out.
- All students, regardless of their race, are likely to improve in social studies when they live in communities in which race and socioeconomic resources are not highly related.
- The higher the level of consolidation, the less improved do higher-SES students make in social studies.
- The last 2 years of high school is a period in which low achievers can make strong gains.
- The best environment for social learning is one in which there are no stark economic divisions between racial groups that fragment experiences for adolescents by creating artificial barriers for social contact and social relations.