- 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.