| Stephanie Moller
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
The solidification of achievement differentials by race, class and gender: What strategies might boost the post-secondary educational returns to achievement?
FINAL REPORT:
This research has two components. First, we look into the relationship between students’Äô achievement trajectories and post-secondary educational attainment. Second, we examine how course of study and schools’Äô organizational structure impact achievement. Researchers who examine the link between high school achievement and educational outcomes include measures of achievement that conflate high school effects with achievement effects established prior to high school because they only measure achievement scores at one period. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study (1988-1994), we disaggregate achievement into achievement prior to high school (in the eighth grade) and changes in achievement during high school (between the eighth and twelfth grades). Disaggregating achievement is important because students’Äô high school achievement reflects educational experiences established prior to high school. We examine the association between achievement and college selectivity for all students, finding that the prestige of the colleges that students attend is largely solidified by the time students enter high school. We also examine this association for each quartile of the SES distribution because family SES is a strong determinant of both student achievement and the selectivity of colleges that students attend. We find that among high SES students, low achieving students can enhance the prestige of the colleges they will attend by moving up the achievement distribution. However, even if their achievement gains are well above average, the prestige of the colleges they are predicted to attend will not surpass students who enter high school at the top or even the middle of the eighth grade achievement distribution. These findings are similar for low SES students. In contrast, the effects of achievement for middle SES students are largely solidified by high school. In addition, the effects of achievement are largely solidified by high school regardless of race and gender.
Yet, we also examine the racially-specific effects of high school course of study on type of college attended, whether two-year or four-year, and find that this impact does vary by race. Using NELS 1988-1994, we test how race and track interactively predict the type of the first post-secondary institution attended. We find that Asian-American and African-American students are more likely to attend four-year colleges than Whites, net of background and academic variables. This is true for African-American students even without those students who attend HBCUs. While Latino students are significantly less likely than Whites to attend four-year colleges, these results are primarily due to differences in their geographic distribution and in their academic background. We also find racially-specific effects of high school course of study, with courses of study playing a lesser role in the college attendance patterns of African-American students than in the college attendance patterns of Whites, Latinos, and Asian-Americans.
We take this research a step further when looking at the impact of high school course of study on post-secondary and labor market outcomes by gender. We assessed how high school curriculum impacts boys’Äô and girls’Äô achievement and outcomes. Researchers have argued that post-secondary educational attainment and later labor market outcomes are shaped by students’Äô characteristics in conjunction with the organization of the high schools these students attend. An important component of a high school’Äôs organizational structure is the inclusiveness of the advanced placement curriculum. We explain how high school Advanced Placement (AP) inclusiveness interacts with gender to predict students’Äô college selectivity and income in young adulthood. The results show that girls and boys who attend high schools with a more inclusive advanced placement curriculum attend more prestigious colleges; yet the positive effect of AP inclusiveness is stronger for girls than boys. In addition, the gender gap in income is lower among students who attend more AP inclusive high schools. This research furthers the debate about the effects of school structure on stratification by clarifying how schools’Äô AP inclusiveness impacts long-term gender stratification.
Together, this research illustrates that individuals’Äô educational outcomes are shaped by their demographic characteristics in conjunction with course of study and organizational structure. This study has provided a solid foundation for further exploring long-term achievement from middle school into young adulthood. There is not a single solution for boosting returns to educational achievement. Strategies should vary across race, gender, and SES.
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