2013 - The Effect of High School Segregation on Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills in the United States

Attribution: Palardy, Gregory J., & Rumberger, Russell W.
Researchers: Gregory J. PalardyRussell W. Rumberger
University Affiliation: University of California, Riverside; University of California, Santa Barbara
Email: gregory.palardy@ucr.edu ; russ@education.ucsb.edu ; truman.butler@email.ucr.edu
Research Question:
1) What is the extent of racial, socioeconomic, and linguistic segregation among U.S. high schools? 2) To what degree are student's cognitive and non-cognitive skills due to school effects and to individual differences among students? 3) What are the relative magnitudes of the effects of socioeconomic, racial, and linguistic segregation on cognitive and non-cognitive skills compared with the effects of student socioeconomic status, ethnic background, and English language status? 4) To what degree does each of three school mechanisms (school inputs, peer influences, and school practices) mediate the effects of school segregation?
Published: 0
Journal Name or Institutional Affiliation: N/A
Journal Entry: "Segregation, Immigration, and Educational Inequality: A Multinational Examination of New Research" conference, Ghent, Belgium
Year: 2013
Findings:
  • Descriptive results verify that there is extensive segregation in American high schools. Low socioeconomic status and non-Native English speaking students are also segregated in schools. However, non-Hispanic non-native English speakers are far less likely to be segregated in schools by SES, ethnicity, or linguistically. The learning environment at low SES schools is relatively compromised and the learning environment at high SES schools relatively enhanced.
  • Each form of segregation has a substantial total effect on both outcomes but must of these effects are due to individual differences among students in terms of family or educational backgrounds as well as the structure and resources of the schools they attend. Even when controlling for school, family and previous education, socioeconomic segregation continues to have a strong positive association with the cognitive outcome and proportion black continues to have a significant negative association with both outcomes. The school mechanisms, peer influences and school practices, fully account for the effect of proportion black students and account for two thirds of the socioeconomic composition effect.
Keywords: Academic AchievementEnglish Language LearnersHigh SchoolMathRacial CompositionReadingSES CompositionRegions: NationalMethodologies: QuantitativeAnalysis Methods: Descriptive StatisticsMultilevel Models Sampling Frame:High school sophomores in the United States who attend public schools in 2002.
Sampling Types: RandomAnalysis Units: IndividualData Types: Quantitative-Panel Data
Data Description:
  • Data for the current analysis comes from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, a survey comprised of 15,000 high school sophomores in 750 public, Catholic, and other private schools. The sample for the current study was limited to students who attend public schools, resulting in 10,151 students attending 581 public high schools.
  • DV: 1) Cognitive Outcomes: student-level reading and math test scores and GPA; 2) Non-Cognitive Outcomes: attendance, suspensions, retention, GPA.
  • IV: The key independent variables are socioeconomic composition (measured as the mean SES of students in each school), racial/ethnic composition (measured as the proportion of the student body at each school that is Asian, black, or Hispanic), and linguistic composition (measured as the proportion of students at each school for whom English is not their native language).
  • Control Variables: School inputs, peer influences, and school practices.
Theoretical Framework:
Relevance:
Archives: K-12 Integration, Desegregation, and Segregation Abstracts