Learning Experience
The “Stuff” of Class: How Property Rules in Preschool Reproduce Class Inequality
Casey Stockstill
Social Problems, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does access to property shape children’s experiences of institutions? Can access to property in preschool counter class inequality? Using two years of ethnographic data from a preschool serving middle-class, white children and a preschool serving poor children of color, I explore how access to and control over objects such as toys shapes children’s school experiences. I found that preschools created different experiences of property: precarious property and protected property. Poor children of color experienced precarious property: personal objects were forbidden at school due to the risk of theft or loss. Teachers’ loose supervision meant that children sometimes had classroom toys taken by peers. In contrast, middle-class, white children experienced protected property; teachers’ rules encouraged children to bring some personal property, which was kept safe at school. Teachers’ close supervision also allowed children to securely enjoy classroom toys. These property rules meant that white, middle-class preschoolers could assert individuality and control through property. Meanwhile, poor preschoolers of color had limited school-sponsored opportunities to assert individuality through personal property. I argue that property rules at preschool can reproduce class inequality.
Liberalization, education, and rights and tolerance attitudes
Clem Brooks & Nora Weber
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Rights and a tolerance of diversity are central to a democratic polity, and for over 60 years scholars have viewed education as a powerful wellspring of liberal attitudes on these issues. But recent concerns with selection bias raise questions about whether exposure to education indeed shapes attitudes. This study offers new perspective on the influence of education on rights and tolerance attitudes in the United States. We use a larger and wider-ranging array of items (63) than has been considered in recent scholarship on this topic. Analyzing General Social Surveys panel data, we apply the Morgan/Winship model to address selection bias concerns. We find novel evidence that education shapes rights and tolerance attitudes. It is exposure to college education, not high school, that appears to be most consequential, suggesting the importance of higher-educational institutions to the diffusion of liberal attitudes. We discuss study limitations and directions for further investigation.
CTE Teacher Licensure and Long-Term Student Outcomes
Bingjie Chen et al.
Education Finance and Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
We use longitudinal data from Massachusetts that link high school course-taking records in career and technical education (CTE) to postsecondary student outcomes to provide the first empirical evidence linking characteristics of CTE teachers to later student outcomes. We find that CTE teachers who received better scores on subject performance tests required for licensure tend to have students with higher longer-term earnings than CTE teachers who received lower scores on these tests, controlling for other factors. Specifically, we estimate that a 1 standard deviation increase in teacher performance on these tests is associated with about a $1,000 increase in average expected earnings for the teacher's students 5 years after their expected graduation date, controlling for licensure test area and observable differences between students.
Does Money Still Matter? Attainment and Earnings Effects of Post-1990 School Finance Reforms
Jesse Rothstein & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach
NBER Working Paper, August 2021
Abstract:
Card and Krueger (1992a,b) used labor market outcomes to study the productivity of school spending. Following their lead, we examine effects of post-1990 school finance reforms on students’ educational attainment and labor market outcomes. Lafortune et al. (2018) show that these reforms increased school spending and narrowed spending and achievement gaps between high- and low-income districts. Using a state-by-cohort panel design, we find that reforms increased high school completion and college-going, concentrated among Black students and women, and raised annual earnings. They also increased the return to education, particularly for Black students and men and driven by the return to high school.
Reappraising stress arousal improves affective, neuroendocrine, and academic performance outcomes in community college classrooms
Jeremy Jamieson et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, forthcoming
Abstract:
The field experiment presented here applied a stress regulation technique to optimize affective and neuroendocrine responses and improve academic and psychological outcomes in an evaluative academic context. Community college students (N = 339) were randomly assigned to stress reappraisal or active control conditions immediately before taking their second in-class exam. Whereas stress is typically perceived as having negative effects, stress reappraisal informs individuals about the functional benefits of stress and is hypothesized to reduce threat appraisals, and subsequently, improve downstream outcomes. Multilevel models indicated that compared with controls, reappraising stress led to less math evaluation anxiety, lower threat appraisals, more adaptive neuroendocrine responses (lower cortisol and higher testosterone levels on testing days relative to baseline), and higher scores on Exam 2 and on a subsequent Exam 3. Reappraisal students also persisted in their courses at a higher rate than controls. Targeted mediation models suggested stress appraisals partially mediated effects of reappraisal. Notably, procrastination and performance approach goals (measured between exams) partially mediated lagged effects of reappraisal on subsequent performance. Implications for the stress, emotion regulation, and mindsets literatures are discussed. Moreover, alleviating negative effects of acute stress in community college students, a substantial but understudied population, has potentially important applied implications.
The Disciplinary Differences in the Characteristics and Effects of Non-Tenure-Track Faculty
Di Xu & Florence Xiaotao Ran
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using data with detailed instructor employment information from a state college system, this study examines disciplinary variations in the characteristics and effects of non-tenure-track faculty hired through temporary and long-term employment. We identify substantial differences in demographic and employment characteristics between the two types of non-tenure-line faculty, where the differences are most pronounced in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and health-related fields (STEM) at 4-year colleges. Using an instrumental variables strategy to address student sorting, our analyses indicate that taking introductory courses with temporary adjuncts reduces subsequent interest, and the effects are particularly large in STEM fields at 4-year colleges. Long-term non-tenure faculty are generally comparable with tenure-track faculty in student subsequent interest, but tenure-track faculty are associated with better subsequent performance in a handful of fields.
Advanced Placement and Initial College Enrollment: Evidence from an Experiment
Dylan Conger, Mark Long & Raymond McGhee
Education Finance and Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
To evaluate how Advanced Placement courses affect college-going, we randomly assigned the offer of enrollment into an AP science course to over 1,800 students in 23 schools that had not previously offered the course. We find no AP course effects on students’ college entrance exam scores (SAT/ACT). As expected, AP course-takers are substantially more likely to take the AP exam than their control group counterparts. At the same time, treatment group students opt out of the exam at very high rates and most do not earn a passing score on the AP exam. Though less precisely estimated, the results also suggest that taking the AP course increases students’ aspirations to attend higher-quality colleges but does not lead to enrollment in such institutions.
Mere Exposure to Dialogic Framing Enriches Argumentive Thinking
Deanna Kuhn & Anahid Modrek
Applied Cognitive Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Sixty college students either read a script of a dialog between two individuals holding contrasting positions on the issue of US immigration or read texts containing their two individual position statements on the issue, expressing their same respective views. With this material removed from view, participants expressed in writing their own views on the issue. We asked whether exposure to the dialogic framing would have a greater effect on argumentive thinking, compared to non-dialogic presentation of the same arguments. Essays of the two groups differed in several ways. The dialog group showed greater investment in the task by writing more. Additionally, 78% of the dialog group (vs. 48% of the individual-position control group) made reference to the views they had read, despite no instruction to do so, over half referencing them in a comparative way (vs. 21% of the control group). The substance of the essays showed richer thought by the dialog group, including more “However” clauses (connecting two opposing statements) and more meta-level statements about the issue itself, supporting the hypothesis of a benefit of dialogic framing. Theoretical and educational implications are considered.
Training spatial cognition enhances mathematical learning in a randomized study of 17,000 children
Nicholas Judd & Torkel Klingberg
Nature Human Behaviour, forthcoming
Abstract:
Spatial and mathematical abilities are strongly associated. Here, we analysed data from 17,648 children, aged 6–8 years, who performed 7 weeks of mathematical training together with randomly assigned spatial cognitive training with tasks demanding more spatial manipulation (mental rotation or tangram), maintenance of spatial information (a visuospatial working memory task) or spatial, non-verbal reasoning. We found that the type of cognitive training children performed had a significant impact on mathematical learning, with training of visuospatial working memory and reasoning being the most effective. This large, community-based study shows that spatial cognitive training can result in transfer to academic abilities, and that reasoning ability and maintenance of spatial information is relevant for mathematics learning in young children.
Spending More or Spending Less? Institutional Expenditures and Staffing in the Free-College Era
Taylor Odle & Alex Monday
AERA Open, July 2021
Abstract:
While research has documented outcomes for students served by promise programs, few studies have considered the behavior of institutions themselves in the promise era. A new source of revenue combined with larger and more diverse cohorts is likely to motivate changes in spending and staffing — decisions instrumental to student access and success. We employ complementary difference-in-differences and synthetic control strategies to estimate impacts of the first statewide promise program on these two outcomes. Findings suggest institutions diverted expenditures away from instruction, academic support, and institutional support toward greater institutional grant awards. We find no meaningful impact on staffing levels. While some institutional actions may further support the access and success goals of promise programs, the diversity of programs across the nation suggests not all may follow suit. This study should inform policy makers considering the full extent of outcomes of free-college programs and invigorate further research on institutional responses.
The Impact of Merit Aid on College Choice and Degree Attainment: Reexamining Florida’s Bright Futures Program
Oded Gurantz & Taylor Odle
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
We replicate and extend prior work on Florida’s Bright Futures merit aid scholarship to consider its effect on college enrollment and degree completion. We estimate causal impacts using a regression discontinuity design to exploit SAT thresholds that strongly determine eligibility. We find no positive impacts on attendance or attainment, and instrumental variable results generally reject estimates as small as 1 to 2 percentage points. Across subgroups, we find that eligibility slightly reduces 6-year associate degree attainment for lower socioeconomic status students and may induce small enrollment shifts among Hispanic and White students toward 4-year colleges. Our findings of these minimal-at-best impacts contrast those of prior works, attributable in part to methodological improvements and more robust data, and further underscore the importance of study replication.