Mickelson, Roslyn A.
Researchers: Roslyn A. Mickelson
University Affiliation: University of North Carolina Charlotte
Email: rmicklsn@uncc.edu
Research Question:
Analyzes how organizational features of school racial composition and tracks influence student's opportunities to learn material covered on the SAT.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Ohio State Law Journal
Journal Entry: Vol. 67, No. 1
Year: 2006
Findings:
- Both forms of segregation (first-generation and second-generation) negatively affects SAT scores.
- Racially imbalanced High School tracks affect SAT scores.
- High School track were one of the most important influences on SAT outcomes.
- After controlling for difference in family background, gender, effort, peer group influences, and prior achievement, there was a relationship with student’s race and track placement. Blacks were more likely than otherwise similar Whites to be enrolled in lower tracks.
- The more time students spent in segregated Black elementary schools, the less likely they were to be assigned to higher track classes in High School, all else being equal.
- Black-White race gap in SAT scores reflects variations in opportunities to learn that are associated with the racial composition of schools and classrooms in which students learn.
- School sponsored opportunities to prepare for the SAT that vary with a school’s racial composition were more subtle indicators of white privilege in CMS.
- Students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and those with cultural capital earn higher SAT scores.
- Prior achievement, college-oriented peers, and optimistic attitudes about education’s role in one’s future all have positive effects on SAT scores.
- Self-reported effort and abstract attitudes have no effect.