| Odis Johnson
University of Maryland, College Park
Study of ecological determinants of the achievement gap
The skills children learn early in life are related to key predictors of educational attainment, employment and wages. Disparities among indicators of early cognitive ability are subsequently a pressing national concern. Using a sample of 3075 kindergarteners from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort of 1998-1999, this study examines growth in the racial, gender and social class test-score gaps according to the qualities of the neighborhoods children occupy in the summer and the academic year. The central premise of this study is that seasonal investigations of the achievement gap have not considered how the social organization of neighborhoods also changes as the seasons do, and is likely to have a greater impact on the cognitive development of children during the summer. Three features of this study inform this premise. First, the study assesses the relative influence of the ecological development (i.e. unguided learning in the summer) and directed development (i.e. formal education) periods on racial and social class differences in mathematics and reading while considering how concerted cultivation (i.e. non-institutional learning experiences) may serve as a mediating factor. Second, the study examines gender differences in cognitive growth and within each racial group across the seasons. Last, the study considers whether the racial composition, economic segregation and social organization of neighborhoods are key determinants of disparities in early cognition. Research that generates knowledge about seasonal variation in neighborhood effects may help policy-makers better direct resources to the appropriate context of inequality at a time when cognitive disparities are produced.
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