Legacy Admissions
Racial-Ethnic Differences at the Intersection of Math Course-taking and Achievement
Catherine Riegle-Crumb & Eric Grodsky
Sociology of Education, July 2010, Pages 248-270
Abstract:
Despite increases in the representation of African American and Hispanic youth in advanced math courses in high school over the past two decades, recent national reports indicate that substantial inequality in achievement remains. These inequalities can temper one's optimism about the degree to which the United States has made real progress toward educational equity. Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS), the authors find that the math achievement gap is most pronounced among those students who take the most demanding high school math classes, such as precalculus and calculus. The authors explore the roles of family socioeconomic status and school composition in explaining this pattern. Findings suggest that among those students reaching the advanced math high school stratum, Hispanic youth from low-income families and African American youth from segregated schools fare the worst in terms of closing the achievement gap with their white peers. The authors discuss potential explanations for the achievement differences observed and stress the need for more research that focuses explicitly on the factors that inhibit minority/majority parity at the top of the secondary curricular structure.
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Persistence of women and minorities in STEM field majors: Is it the school that matters?
Amanda Griffith
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
During college, many students switch from their planned major to another, particularly so when that planned major was in a Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) field. A worrying statistic shows that persistence in one of these majors is much lower for women and minorities, suggesting that this may be a leaky joint in the STEM pipeline for these two groups of students. This paper uses restricted-use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen (NLSF) and the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88) to examine which factors contribute to persistence of all students in STEM field majors, and in particular the persistence of women and minorities. Although descriptive statistics show that a smaller percentage of women and minorities persist in a STEM field major as compared to male and non-minority students, regression analysis shows that differences in preparation and the educational experiences of these students explains much of the differences in persistence rates. Students at selective institutions with a large graduate to undergraduate student ratio and that devote a significant amount of spending to research have lower rates of persistence in STEM fields. A higher percentage of female and minority STEM field graduate students positively impacts on the persistence of female and minority students. However, there is little evidence that having a larger percentage of STEM field faculty members that are female increases the likelihood of persistence for women in STEM majors. These results suggest that the sorting of women and minorities into different types of undergraduate programs, as well as differences in their backgrounds have a significant impact on persistence rates.
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Interracial Friendships in College
Braz Camargo, Ralph Stinebrickner & Todd Stinebrickner
NBER Working Paper, May 2010
Abstract:
Motivated by the reality that the benefits of diversity on a college campus will be mitigated if interracial interactions are scarce or superficial, previous work has strived to document the amount of interracial friendship interaction and to examine whether policy can influence this amount. In this paper we take advantage of unique longitudinal data from the Berea Panel Study to build on this previous literature by providing direct evidence about the amount of interracial friendships at different stages of college and by providing new evidence about some of the possible underlying reasons for the observed patterns of interaction. We find that, while much sorting exists at all stages of college, black and white students are, in reality, very compatible as friends; randomly assigned roommates of different races are as likely to become friends as randomly assigned roommates of the same race. Further, we find that, in the long-run, white students who are randomly assigned black roommates have a significantly larger proportion of black friends than white students who are randomly assigned white roommates, even when the randomly assigned roommates are not included in the calculation of the proportions. This last result contradicts previous findings in the literature.
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Revival of test bias research in preemployment testing
Herman Aguinis, Steven Culpepper & Charles Pierce
Journal of Applied Psychology, July 2010, Pages 648-680
Abstract:
We developed a new analytic proof and conducted Monte Carlo simulations to assess the effects of methodological and statistical artifacts on the relative accuracy of intercept- and slope-based test bias assessment. The main simulation design included 3,185,000 unique combinations of a wide range of values for true intercept- and slope-based test bias, total sample size, proportion of minority group sample size to total sample size, predictor (i.e., preemployment test scores) and criterion (i.e., job performance) reliability, predictor range restriction, correlation between predictor scores and the dummy-coded grouping variable (e.g., ethnicity), and mean difference between predictor scores across groups. Results based on 15 billion 925 million individual samples of scores and more than 8 trillion 662 million individual scores raise questions about the established conclusion that test bias in preemployment testing is nonexistent and, if it exists, it only occurs regarding intercept-based differences that favor minority group members. Because of the prominence of test fairness in the popular media, legislation, and litigation, our results point to the need to revive test bias research in preemployment testing.
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Office Discipline and Student Behavior: Does Race Matter?
Michael Rocque
American Journal of Education, August 2010, Pages 557-581
Abstract:
Previous research has consistently found a relationship between student race and discipline. For example, African Americans are more likely than whites to be sent to the office or suspended. However, much of this work is limited by a lack of student behavior and school‐level variables. This study examined the effect of student race on office referrals in 45 elementary schools while controlling for ratings of student behavior and using a fixed effects model to remove school‐level influences. The results indicate that African American students are significantly more likely to be referred to the office than other racial groups. Neither student behavior nor school‐level factors are sufficient to explain this relationship; however, these factors do dampen the effect of race on discipline, suggesting that previous work has reported inflated coefficients. Given the historical association between exclusionary school discipline and later negative life outcomes, this issue warrants increased attention. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.
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Catherine Bradshaw, Mary Mitchell, Lindsey O'Brennan & Philip Leaf
Journal of Educational Psychology, May 2010, Pages 508-520
Abstract:
Although there is increasing awareness of the overrepresentation of ethic minority students-particularly Black students-in disciplinary actions, the extant research has rarely empirically examined potential factors that may contribute to these disparities. The current study used a multilevel modeling approach to examine factors at the child (e.g., teacher-rated disruptive behavior problems) and classroom or teacher levels (e.g., teacher ethnicity, level of disruptive behavior in classroom) that may contribute to the overrepresentation of minority students in office disciplinary referrals (ODRs). Data come from 6,988 children in 381 classrooms at 21 elementary schools. The analyses indicated that even after controlling for the student's level of teacher-rated behavior problems, teacher ethnicity, and other classroom factors, Black students were significantly more likely than White students to receive ODRs. Results also suggested that ethnic match between students and their teachers did not reduce the risk for referrals among Black students.
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Tatiana Melguizo
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, June 2010, Pages 230-248
Abstract:
The study takes advantage of the nontraditional selection process of the Gates Millennium Scholars (GMS) program to test the association between selectivity of 4-year institution attended as well as other noncognitive variables on the college completion rates of a sample of students of color. The results of logistic regression and propensity score matching suggest these students are slightly more likely to graduate from college if they attend a highly selective institution. There is also evidence that other noncognitive variables such as leadership are good predictors of college completion. This suggests that admission offices interested in attracting a more diverse student body might want to consider expanding the traditional admission criteria.
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Deidra Schleicher, Chad Van Iddekinge, Frederick Morgeson & Michael Campion
Journal of Applied Psychology, July 2010, Pages 603-617
Abstract:
This article explores the intersection of 2 critical and timely concerns in personnel selection - applicant retesting and subgroup differences - by exploring demographic differences in retest effects across multiple assessments. Results from large samples of applicants taking 3 written tests (N = 7,031) and 5 performance tests (N = 2,060) revealed that Whites showed larger retest score improvements than Blacks or Hispanics on several of the assessments. However, the differential improvement of Whites was greater on the written tests than on the performance tests. In addition, women and applicants under 40 years of age showed larger improvements with retesting than did men and applicants over 40. We offer some preliminary theoretical explanations for these demographic differences in retesting gains, including differences in ability, testing attitudes and motivation, and receptivity to feedback. In terms of practical implications, the results suggest that allowing applicants to retake selection tests may, in some cases, exacerbate levels of adverse impact, which can have distinct implications for retesting policy and practices in organizations.
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European American children's and adolescents' evaluations of interracial exclusion
Melanie Killen, Megan Clark Kelly, Cameron Richardson, David Crystal & Martin Ruck
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, May 2010, Pages 283-300
Abstract:
No research, to date, has investigated the role of ethnic school composition (and intergroup contact) on European American youth's use of stereotypes to explain interracial discomfort in the context of peer exclusion. In this study, European American fourth-, seventh- and 10th-grade students (N = 414), attending low and high ethnically-diverse public schools (with low and high self-reports of cross-race/ethnic friendships respectively) evaluated three contexts of interracial exclusion (at lunch time, at a school dance, and at a sleepover). In addition to age and context effects, participants enrolled in high-diversity schools were less likely to use stereotypes to explain racial discomfort, more likely to view racial exclusion as wrong, and more likely to estimate that racial exclusion occurs, than were participants enrolled in low-diversity schools. These findings have implications for the role of social experience on racial attitudes and judgments about exclusion.
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Deborah Schechter & Cyrilla Francis
Human Nature, June 2010, Pages 140-164
Abstract:
Following from life history and attachment theory, individuals are predicted to be sensitive to variation in environmental conditions such that risk and uncertainty are internalized by cognitive, affective, and psychobiological mechanisms. In turn, internalizing of environmental uncertainty is expected to be associated with attitudes toward risk behaviors and investments in education. Native American youth aged 10-19 years (n = 89) from reservation communities participated in a study examining this pathway. Measures included family environmental risk and uncertainty, present and future time perspective, adolescent attachment, attitudes toward risk, investments in education, and salivary cortisol. Results support the idea that environmental risk and uncertainty are internalized during development. In addition, internalizing mechanisms significantly predicted attitudes toward risk and education: (1) lower scores on future time perspective and higher cortisol predicted higher scores on risk attitudes, and (2) higher scores on future time perspective and lower scores on problems with attachment predicted higher self-reported school performance. Gender differences were seen, with males anticipating a shorter lifespan than females, which predicted higher scores on risk attitudes and lower school performance. Implications for research on adolescent problem behavior and academic achievement are discussed.
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Socioeconomic background and racial earnings inequality: A propensity score analysis
Jeremy Pais
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does a racial earnings gap exist among individuals who come from similar childhood socioeconomic backgrounds? Is the racial earnings gap larger or smaller for those from higher or lower socioeconomic origins? This research addresses these questions by taking a counterfactual approach to estimating the residual racial pay gap between non-Hispanic black and white men from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The findings indicate that the racial earnings gap is larger among those from lower-middle class and working class childhood backgrounds than among those from upper-middle class backgrounds, for whom the racial pay gap is indistinguishable from zero. Compared to their more advantaged counterparts, black men from lower-middle and working class backgrounds have more difficulty rising above their socioeconomic origins relative to white men from similar social class backgrounds. Racial earnings equality among those from upper-middle class backgrounds suggests that the high levels of racial inequality often observed among those with college and professional degrees may in fact reflect heterogeneous childhood socioeconomic backgrounds among the college educated-backgrounds that continue to have an effect on earnings despite individual academic achievements.
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Katrina Walsemann & Bethany Bell
American Journal of Public Health, forthcoming
Objectives: We examined the extent to which within-school segregation, as measured by unevenness in the distribution of Black and White adolescents across levels of the English curriculum (advanced placement-international baccalaureate-honors, general, remedial, or no English), was associated with smoking, drinking, and educational aspirations, which previous studies found are related to school racial/ethnic composition.
Methods: We analyzed data from wave 1 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, restricting our sample to non-Hispanic Blacks (n=2731) and Whites (n=4158) who from 1994 to 1995 attended high schools that enrolled Black and White students.
Results: White female students had higher predicted probabilities of smoking or drinking than did Black female students; the largest differences were in schools with high levels of within-school segregation. Black male students had higher predicted probabilities of high educational aspirations than did White male students in schools with low levels of within-school segregation; this association was attenuated for Black males attending schools with moderate or high levels of within-school segregation.
Conclusions: Our results provide evidence that within-school segregation may influence both students' aspirations and their behaviors.
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Formal Dining at Cambridge Colleges: Linking Ritual Performance and Institutional Maintenance
Tina Dacin, Kamal Munir & Paul Tracey
Academy of Management Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine the role of rituals in institutional maintenance. Through an in-depth, qualitative study of formal dining at Cambridge University, we explore how the performance of these rituals contributes to the maintenance of the British class system. We find that rituals are important for institutional maintenance because they have a powerful bearing on participants beyond the confines of the ritual itself. Our analysis also suggests that institutions are refracted through context and individual experience at a micro level, and indicates a more fragmented and less strategic conception of institutional maintenance than is portrayed in recent work.
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The Effect of Gender, Ethnicity, and Income on College Students' Use of Communication Technologies
Reynol Junco, Dan Merson, Daniel Salter
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, forthcoming
Abstract:
Because campus officials are relying on personal communication technologies to communicate with students, a question arises about access and usage. Although communication technologies are popular among college students, some evidence suggests that differences exist in ownership and use. We examined patterns of student ownership and use of cell phones and use of instant messaging, focusing on three predictors of digital inequality: gender, ethnicity, and income. Logistic and hierarchical linear regression analyses were used to analyze results from 4,491 students. The odds that female and white students owned cell phones were more than twice as high as for men and African-American students. Students in the $100,000-$149,000 per year income bracket were more than three times as likely to own a cell phone than those from the median bracket. However, being female, African-American, and/or from the highest income brackets was positively predictive of the number of text messages sent and the amount of time spent talking on a cell phone per week. We found no differences between students on the use of instant messaging. Implications of these results, as well as areas for further research, are provided.
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Love, discipline and elementary school achievement: The role of family emotional climate
Katerina Bodovski & Min-Jong Youn
Social Science Research, July 2010, Pages 585-595
Abstract:
Using structural equation modeling we examined the determinants of family emotional climate and its long-term impact on children's academic achievement and classroom behavior at the end of 5th grade. We employed the ECLS-K data-a large, nationally representative sample of U.S. elementary school students. Family emotional climate was measured in the spring of kindergarten and included three dimensions: parental depression, parental warmth, and use of physical discipline. Main findings: low SES, Black and single parents were more likely to report depressive symptoms. Black parents were more likely to use physical discipline, but they also reported greater parental warmth. Asian parents were less likely to use physical discipline, but also were less likely to express parental warmth. Parental depression was associated with increased use of physical discipline and reduced parental warmth. Parental depression, measured in kindergarten, was associated with lower reading and math achievement and lower approaches to learning at the end of 5th grade. Use of physical discipline in kindergarten was associated with lower 5th-grade math achievement.