2001 - Students' Attachment and Academic Engagement: The Role of Race and Ethnicity

Attribution: Johnson, Monica Kirkpatrick, Crosnoe, Robert, & Elder Jr., Glen H.
Researchers: Glen H. Elder Jr.Monica Kirkpatrick JohnsonRobert Crosnoe
University Affiliation: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; University of Texas at Austin
Email: monica_johnson@unc.edu
Research Question:
Examines relationship between race and school attachment and engagement.
Published: 1
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: Sociology of Education
Journal Entry: Vol. 74, No.4, pp. 318-340
Year: 2001
Findings:
  • The authors examined whether students of different racial-ethnic groups vary in attachment and engagement and whether properties of schools (ex. racial-ethnic composition) influence these outcomes over and above individual characteristics.
  • At the individual level, African Americans are more engaged than White and Hispanic students.
  • Hispanic students are more attached than are other groups.
  • The student racial-ethnic composition is related to attachment but has no effect on engagement and behaviors, once other school factors are controlled for.
  • Students who attend schools w/higher proportion of students of their own race-ethnicity are more attached to schools. This was not the case for engagement.
  • None of the school level variables explains why the effect of race-ethnicity on attachment and engagement varies across schools.
  • The authors conclude that the racial-ethnic composition of schools does not produce the variation in the effect of race-ethnicity on attachment and engagement. The school effects were small. Only a limited portion of the total variance in each outcome could be attributed to school factors of any kind.
Keywords: Academic AchievementOutcomesRacial CompositionTeachersRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeResearch Designs: Secondary Survey DataAnalysis Methods: Multilevel Models Sampling Frame:National
Sampling Types: RandomAnalysis Units: SchoolStudentData Types: Quantitative-Longitudinal
Data Description:
  • The data are from Add Health, an ongoing nationally representative study of U.S. adolescents in grades 7-12, begun in 1994.
  • This study examines the Wave I sample of adolescents and draws from three other Add Health data sets (Parent Data Set, School Administrator Data Set, and aggregated responses from students on in-school questionnaire). The data includes individual and school level variables.
  • Study uses only Hispanic, Black and White adolescents with a sampling weight. Excluded all adolescents from schools where response rate was <70%.
  • The final sample was 8,104 students in 64 target schools and 2,482 students in 45 feeder schools.
  • DV: The dependent variables are measures of school attachment and school engagement.
  • IV: The independent individual variables are race, gender, parent education, age, parental educational expectations, and intact family. School-level independent variables are: percent of students in school of same race as respondent, percent of white teachers, school sector (private or public), region of the school, school size, average GPA, and average level of parental education.
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts