2010 - Racial-Ethnic Differences at the Intersection of Math Course-Taking and Achievement

Attribution: Riegle-Crumb, Catherine, & Grodsky, Eric
Researchers: Catherine Riegle-CrumbEric Grodsky
University Affiliation: University of Texas - Austin; University of Minnesota
Email: riegle@austin.utexas.edu
Research Question:
The roles of family SES and school composition in explaining why the math achievement gap is most pronounced among those students who take the most demanding HS math classes, especially among low-income Hispanic and segregated Black youth.
Published: Yes
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Sociology of Education
Journal Entry: Vol. 83, Number 3, pp. 248-270
Year: 2010
Findings:
  • Math achievement gap, particularly for African American and White students, is most pronounced among students completing the most demanding courses.
  • Among those students reaching the advanced math high school stratum, Hispanic youth from low-income families and African American youth from segregated schools fare the worst in terms of closing the achievement gap with their white peers.
  • Some evidence that differences in levels of income and parental education contribute more to the Hispanic/white test gap in the advanced math stratum than among those in the nonadvanced stratum.
  • Minority parents appear just as effective as white parents in translating the advantages of high levels of social class to their children’s achievement in advanced math classes, if not more so, refuting prior studies.
  • School segregation contributes to racial/ethnic differences in math achievement for African America students enrolled in advanced math courses.
  • Minority students in advanced classes fall further behind the achievement of their White peers than students completing only lower level classes; also, being in advanced classes improves math achievement for all students.
  • The effects of social origin and school composition on students’ learning between 10th and 12th grade are relatively modest.
Scholarship Types: Journal Article Reporting Empirical ResearchKeywords: Course-Taking PatternsMathematicsRaceRacial CompositionSegregationRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Descriptive StatisitcsMultilevel Models Sampling Frame:Public High Schools
Sampling Types: Nationally RepresentativeAnalysis Units: SchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:

The authors utilized data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002. Subsequent follow-ups were conducted in 2004, when most students were seniors, and 2006. The authors restricted their analytic sample to students in public schools. N= 3900.

The dependent variable is student’s senior year math achievement test score, scaled as the number of items the student would have answered correctly had he or she taken the complete mathematics test (based on the student’s IRT scale score).

The independent variables in their analyses are taken from the 10th-grade surveys. To capture the socioeconomic status of the student’s family, they include indicators for both parental education level and family income.

To capture the potentially deleterious effects of school segregation on achievement, they include a measure of the percentage of the student body that is either African American or Hispanic. The authors also construct interaction terms between students’ race-ethnicity and parental education, family income, and school composition.

The authors adjust for two dimensions of prior academic preparation: students’ cumulative grade point average (GPA) in math at the end of their sophomore year of high school and students’ score on the math achievement test administered by ELS during the 10th-grade year and scaled to be directly comparable to the senior year math assessment score.

Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:Factors Related to STEM Readiness
Archives: K-16 STEM Abstracts