Muller, Chandra, Riegle-Crumb, Catherine, Gonzalez, Lorerna Lopez, & Schiller, Kathryn S.
University Affiliation: University of Texas at Austin; SUNY Albany
Email: cmuller@soc.utexas.edu
Research Question:
Looks at segregation within school,according to race,in core academic courses on student's academic achievement & the race gap in each at the end of HS
Published: 0
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: N/A
Journal Entry: Paper Presented at the ASA, San Francisco, CA, Aug
Year: 2004
Findings:
- On average, the race and social class gaps in course taking increase between grade 9 and the end of high school.
- African American and Latino students whose parents do not have a college degree complete the lowest levels of mathematics courses, followed by their white counterparts.
- The percentage of minority students in the school and the under representation of minority students in advanced mathematics classes are not significantly associated with how far students progress in math. However, it does predict the how far minority students of in mathematics relative to whites and Asians.
- In schools with greater under representation, minority students complete less mathematics than Whites, suggesting that the race gap is exacerbated in these schools.
- Students go farther in mathematics when they are in schools with higher percentages of students in advanced mathematics and when there are more children of college-educated parents in the schools
- Overall, students are more likely to graduate in schools with fewer minority students, more college-educated parents and when mathematics classes are more stratified according to race.
- Students whose parents do not have a college degree -Whites and non-Whites alike are less likely to graduate, and nonwhite students whose parents have graduated from college or more are more likely to graduate from high school than Whites of highly educated parents.
- School composition and stratification are associated with high school differently depending upon the individual attributes of the student.
- Race and parents’ education (SES measure) are related to achievement.
- Race and class gaps in course-taking increase during high school.
- The under-representation of minority students in higher level math classes is associated with the lower academic achievement of minority students within the school. This gap exists independent of social class (parental education).