2007 - School Composition and Hispanic Achievement

Attribution: Armor, David J., & Watkins, Shanea
Researchers: David J. ArmorShanea Watkins
University Affiliation: George Mason University
Email: darmor@gmu.edu
Research Question:
Examine the effect of Hispanic concentration on Hispanic educational outcomes.
Published: 0
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: N/A
Journal Entry: Presented at the Sociology of Education Association conference
Year: 2007
Findings:
  • The Texas data does not support a conclusion that Hispanic concentration harms Hispanic achievement to a significant degree.
  • After controlling for socioeconomic status, the cross-sectional relationship between Hispanic concentration and achievement is either positive or very small in most states with appreciable numbers of Hispanic students.
  • The study finds no significant negative relationship between Hispanic concentration and Hispanic math or reading achievement among those states with the largest Hispanic student.
  • Hispanic achievement trends in predominantly Hispanic schools are not much different from the trends in majority White schools as opposed to predominantly White schools.
  • The fixed effect regression analyses with lagged achievement show no statistically significant adverse impacts of Hispanic concentration on either math or reading scores in Texas.
Keywords: Academic AchievementHispanicsLatinosMathRacial CompositionReadingRegions: SouthMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Fixed Effects Regression Models Sampling Frame:Schools with Hispanic students in TX & CA
Sampling Types: PopulationAnalysis Units: SchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • Data from the 2003 NAEP (tested 900 or more 8th grade Hispanic students in six states: Arizona, California, Illinois, New Mexico, New York, and Texas.
  • The longitudinal analyses is done with data from Texas and California.
  • Final sample with slightly less than 30,000 observations with all three elementary grades and at least two of the middle school grades.
  • Estimated model is similar to Hanushek, Rivkin, 2006 and 2007.
  • The study performs first a descriptive analysis of NAEP data, and the proceeds to run fixed effect models with longitudinal data.
  • DV: percentage of students who are proficient in reading or mathematics
  • IV: Hispanic concentration
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts