Paul Attewell

CUNY Graduate Center | CUNY · Program in Sociology

For decades, educators and policy makers have decried low graduation rates at US colleges, advocating policies and making investments to improve graduation. We analyze a decade of Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) data for four-year colleges to investigate how much institutions have improved their graduation rates from 2008 thr...

This paper reports the results of a four-state collaboration––Texas, New York, Virginia, and Illinois––that uses Student Unit Record Database Systems that track students from high school into college. The goal is to determine whether it is possible to accurately predict whether individual students will not graduate using very early indicators avail...

Despite similar educational aspirations, black students persist in higher education at much lower rates than white undergraduates. This paper advances a theoretical explanation for the racial gap in persistence by examining whether the differential attrition in college reflects contrasting incentives for educational persistence. To account for the...

Increasingly, undergraduates take more than 4 years to complete a baccalaureate, a situation widely perceived as a waste of time and money, for students, their families, and taxpayers. We first identify several phenomena that result in a longer time to degree and document the frequency of such delays. Then, using nationally representative data from...

The low number of baccalaureates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is often viewed as problematic for the US's economic competitiveness, leading scholars to search for explanations for STEM retention. Our analyses of the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study indicate that the notion of a so‐called “leaky STEM...

Previous research has shown that the intergenerational transmission of advantage disappears once individuals obtain a bachelor’s degree. This is known as the equalization thesis: the ‘meritocratic power’ of a college degree. This paper revisits the question of origin-destination association among college graduates. We improve on earlier studies by...

Prior research suggests that undergraduates employed during term time are less likely to graduate. Using transcript data from a large multi-campus university in the United States, combined with student earnings data from state administrative records, the authors find that traditional-age students who worked for pay during college on average earned...

Many undergraduates leave college without completing a degree or credential. Some researchers characterize this as a waste of the student’s time because (they assert) college short of a degree does not yield any advantage in the labor market. Using data for an entire cohort of students graduating high school in Texas in one year, we compare the emp...

Considerable research has focused on the academic outcomes of part-time undergraduates, but few studies have addressed their post-college labor market outcomes. This study compares the post-college earnings of community college students based on different full-time, part-time, and stop-out trajectories during their first four semesters. Community c...

Numerous studies have investigated the consequences of vertical transfer on students’ higher education outcomes in comparison to “native 4-year students”—those who went straight from high school into a bachelor’s program. However, the long-term labor market outcomes for vertical transfer students are understudied. Using nationally-representative da...

This paper compares claims making and gender wage gaps in the United States and Norway, and asks how public sector employment moderates the association between gender segregation and the gender gap in wages in the two countries. Using nationally representative data and hierarchical linear modeling, we analyze gender wage gaps within and between job...

In the United States, students’ ability to perform well in school mathematics is important for gaining access to a selective college and affects entry into sought-after majors. We find that the gatekeeper function of mathematics is not a function of general academic prowess and operates separately from advantages attributable to family background....

Higher education in America is characterized by widespread access to college but low rates of completion, especially among undergraduates at less selective institutions. We analyze longitudinal transcript data to examine processes leading to graduation, using Hidden Markov modeling. We identify several latent states that are associated with pattern...

Stratification researchers have reported that the relationship between family background and socio-economic outcomes drops to near zero for individuals who have a baccalaureate degree, leading one scholar to conclude that "This...provides a new answer to the old question about overcoming disadvantaged origins. A college degree can do it." We presen...

Studies relating the selectivity of colleges to the earnings of their graduates report inconsistent findings. Some find no effects; most report statistically significant but quite small earnings benefits from attending a more selective college; and a few studies report large effects. Analyzing two recent national longitudinal studies of college gra...

Low completion rates and increased time to degree at U.S. colleges are a widespread concern for policymakers and academic leaders. Many ‘full time’ undergraduates currently enroll at 12 credits per semester despite the fact that a bachelor’s degree cannot be completed within 4 years at that credit-load. The academic momentum perspective holds that...

College graduation rates in the United States are low in both real and relative terms. This has left all stakeholders looking for novel solutions while perhaps ignoring extant but underused programs. This article examines the effect of "summer bridge" programs, which have students enroll in coursework prior to beginning their first full academic ye...

How much of a difference does it make whether a student of a given academic ability enters a more or a less selective four-year college? Some studies claim that attending a more academically selective college markedly improves one's graduation prospects. Others report the reverse: an advantage from attending an institution where one's own skills ex...

It is well established that students who begin post-secondary education at a community college are less likely to earn a bachelor’s degree than otherwise similar undergraduates who begin at a 4-year school, but there is less consensus over the mechanisms generating this disparity. We explore these using national longitudinal transcript data and pro...

Across the United States, families seek schools with reputations for academic excellence for their children, assuming that such schools improve a talented child's prospects for college admission. This article shows that students from "star" public high schools experience a disadvantage in entering elite colleges that stems from the attention played...

The academic momentum perspective suggests that the speed with which undergraduates initially progress in college significantly affects their likelihood of completing a degree, an effect separate from those of high school academic preparation and family socioeconomic status. Growth curve modeling of undergraduate transcript data reveals that the nu...

In this paper we analyze longitudinal data from a nationally representative panel of college entrants to test and compare several theoretical explanations of college degree attainment and noncompletion. So far, relatively little emphasis has been placed on determining the relative and combined predictive power of competing explanations or mechanism...

We develop a sociological context for understanding the phenomenon of falsely claimed educational credentials and analyze national data that cast light on the incidence of false degrees. We find that about 6% of Bachelor's degrees and 35% of Associate's degrees are falsely claimed. Most individuals who falsely claim degrees have attended the colleg...

This chapter begins with a discussion of the rising demand for more education-especially at the tertiary level-and the internationalization of higher education. It then reviews several theories that attempt of explain why higher education is so tightly linked to occupational and material success. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.

As inequality grows rapidly both in post-industrial societies and in the high-growth economies of the developing world, its centrality and ubiquity among problems of interest to social scientists is becoming only more apparent. And among all of inequality's causes and manifestations, access to education is key to understanding and combating it, bot...

This chapter examines inequality in the formal sector in urban India - the part of the economy that is more integrated into the global economic system - and pays special attention to caste-related income and employment gaps among highly educated employees. Education pays a significant premium and that, over time, the return on ever-higher qualifica...

This chapter examines what happens when highly educated Indians from different caste and religious backgrounds apply for jobs in the modern urban private sector, encompassing multinational corporations as well as prominent Indian companies. It applies a correspondence study of job applicants to college-educated members from the lowest caste within...

Using census data, we compare the economic status of blacks and whites in two neighbouring countries - the USA and Canada - examining the effects of international migration of people of colour upon systems of racial hierarchy. At first impression, the racial income gap is markedly smaller in Canada than in the USA. However, this is largely due to t...

El concepto de competencia desempeña un papel importante dentro de la investigación sociológica, desde estudios en torno al proceso laboral a debates sobre trabajo equitativo. Este artículo aporta un análisis teórico sobre las ambigüedades y dificultades presentes en las concepciones sociológicas actuales de competencia, contrastando cuatro enfoque...

Using national transcript data, the authors examine inequality in access to an advanced curriculum in high school and assess the consequences of curricular intensity on test scores and college entry. Inequalities in curricular intensity are primarily explained by student socioeconomic status effects that operate within schools rather than between s...

The steady expansion of college enrollment rates over the last generation has been heralded as a major step toward reducing chronic economic disparities. But many of the policies that broadened access to higher educationincluding affirmative action, open admissions, and need-based financial aidhave come under attack in recent years by critics alleg...

This article examines the prevalence of discrimination in the job application process of private sector enterprises in India. The study is based on a field experiment where authors replied to job advertisements in major English dailies sending three applications to each call – as an upper caste Hindu applicant, as a dalit and as a Muslim. Using sta...

This paper uses National Sample Survey data to examine the wage gap between higher castes and the scheduled castes/tribes in the regular salaried urban labour market. The main conclusions we draw are (a) discrimination causes 15 per cent lower wages for SC/STs as compared to equally qualified others; (b) SC/ST workers are discriminated against both...

Without Abstract

Abstract For some, the history of clerical work epitomizes the way in which technological change and the division of labor result in the deskilling and degradation of work. This paper argues that this perception of clerical deskilling is mistaken, the result of an inaccurate portrayal of traditional clerking, and of a theoretical tendency to (mis)r...

Using college transcripts, we separate the effects of remedial coursework from high school preparation. For two-year colleges, taking remedial classes was not associated with less academic success. In four-year colleges, there are negative effects of remedial coursework, but many minority students who complete a bachelor's degree do so after taking...

This article documents the size and growth of the black middle class at the beginning of the 21st century, analyzing data from the US Census and the Current Population Survey on income, occupations, and education. We examine barriers to further growth of the black middle class, assessing theories of marriageability and imbalances in the numbers of...

How has the proliferation of communications media changed the volume of communication and the distribution of information in large organizations? There is reason to think that the availability of more communication media increases the amount of communication employees receive, with positive effects on their organizational knowledge and commitment,...

Using time-diary data from a national sample of young school-age children, we examine the correlates of time spent at home on computing for cognitive and other measures of well-being. We observe modest benefits associated with home computing on three tests of cognitive skill, and on a measure of self-esteem. Most young children who spend time at ho...

Rates of involuntary job loss (from plant closures, downsizing, and so on) have been increasing in the United States during the past 15 years. Using several cross-sectional surveys from the Current Population Survey, and longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this article demonstrates that the likelihood of job displacement diff...

This article assesses the effects of home computers on school performance, and examines inequalities in educational payoff among those children who have home computers. We find that having a home computer is associated with higher test scores in mathematics and reading, even after controlling for family income and for cultural and social capital. H...

Several attributes of communication media influence the costs of their use and utility, and these in turn have the potential to influence their patterns of use and organizational consequences. The goal of this paper is to examine some of these media attributes and their consequences in a large international firm. The data come from a survey of 973...

The dominant explanation for the spread of technological innovations emphasizes processes of influence and information flow. Firms which are closely connected to pre-existing users of an innovation learn about it and adopt it early on. Firms at the periphery of communication networks are slower to adopt. This paper develops an alternative model whi...

Several authoritative sources have raised the possibility that computer counting and monitoring of work in automated workplaces will transform offices into electronic sweatshops. This paper examines this idea from the vantage point of industrial sociology and managerial theory. Five theoretical models are developed, each of which generates hypothes...

The concept of skill plays an important role in sociological research, from studies of the labor process to debates over equal worth. This article provides a theoretical analysis of the ambiguities and difficulties involved in current sociological conceptions of skill, contrasting four distinct approaches to skill: positivist, ethnomethodological,...

Few studies using representative methods have explored the effects of computing in a cross section of different kinds of organizations. This study presents results of detailed interviews in a representative sample of some 184 computerized private sector firms. Contrary to some skeptical analyses of computerization, managers of most of these organiz...

This paper provides a commentary on Robins and Webster's article "Computer Literacy: The Employment Myths" within the broader context of critiques of computer literacy. The author argues that the various critics of computer literacy are participants in wider disputes over pedagogical method, the purposes of education, and the role of education in a...

Few studies using representative methods have explored the effects of computing in a cross section of different kinds of organizations. This study presents results of detailed interviews in a representative sample of some 184 computerized private sector firms. Contrary to some skeptical analyses of computerization, managers of most of these organiz...

The thesis that capitalism continues to degrade and deskill work in the twentieth century, creating an ever more unskilled proletariat, has been forcefully argued by Harry Braverman and his colleagues. In this article I present a series of theoretical, empirical, and methodological criticisms of the deskilling position, drawing upon a diverse liter...

An abstract is not available.

Pressman and Wildavsky's (1973) popular view that government policy becomes ineffectual in the face of local exigencies is questioned. In contrast, using a case study of government policy on methadone treatment for heroin addiction, we show that federal decision making has profound impact even at microsociological levels of clinic life. A model dra...

The responses of twenty-three normal male subjects to a standardized dose of 95% ethanol (1.32 ml/kg of body weight) were compared after two weeks of placebo and two weeks of therapeutic serum lithium ion levels (mean 0.91 mEq/liter). The study was a placebo controlled, split-half crossover, double-blind design. Prealcohol and postalcohol responses...

• Data reflecting affect, mood, and personality attributes of 23 normal men were compared after two weeks of placebo administration and two weeks of therapeutic serum lithium levels (mean, 0.91 mEq/liter). The study was a placebo-controlled, split-half crossover, double-blind design. Affect and mood were measured by three self-rating instruments, i...

Behavioral and mood changes were measured for 8 normal male subjects after oral administration of sodium pentobarbital (3 mg/kg body weight). This procedure was repeated on three occasions: firstly a drug-free condition; then a condition following two weeks of maintenance 0.7 to 1.2 MEQ/L lithium carbonate; and then another drug-free condition. Int...