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The Segregation of Opportunity: Social and Financial Resources in the Educational Contexts of Lower- and Higher-Income Children, 1990–2014
Abstract
This article provides a rich longitudinal portrait of the financial and social resources available in the school districts of high- and low-income students in the United States from 1990 to 2014. Combining multiple publicly available data sources for most school districts in the United States, we document levels and gaps in school district financial resources—total per-pupil expenditures—and social resources—local rates of adult educational attainment, family structure, and adult unemployment—available to the average public school student at a variety of income levels over time. In addition to using eligibility for the National School Lunch Program as a blunt measure of student income, we estimate resource inequalities between income deciles to analyze resource gaps between affluent and poor children. We then examine the relationship between income segregation and resource gaps between the school districts of high- and low-income children. In previous work, the social context of schooling has been a theoretical but unmeasured mechanism through which income segregation may operate to create unequal opportunities for children. Our results show large and, in some cases, growing social resource gaps in the districts of high- and low-income students nationally and provide evidence that these gaps are exacerbated by income segregation. Conversely, per-pupil funding became more compensatory between high- and low-income students’ school districts over this period, especially in highly segregated states. However, there are early signs of reversal in this trend. The results provide evidence that school finance reforms have been somewhat effective in reducing the consequences of income segregation on funding inequities, while inequalities in the social context of schooling continue to grow.
... In addition to racial disparities, socioeconomic disparities in educational opportunity are well documented. An extensive body of research shows that children from lower income or less educated families tend to have restricted access to educational opportunity at the neighborhood level compared to higher SES peers, as well as having lower educational and economic outcomes (Bischoff & Owens, 2019;Chetty & Hendren, 2018b;Ingels et al., 2002;Owens, 2018Owens, , 2020. As highlighted by investment theory, economic resources allow parents to purchase access to higher quality educational opportunities and may allow for different preferences or priorities in relation to educational opportunities (Becker, 1991;Votruba-Drzal et al., 2021). ...
... Assessing a nationally representative sample of young children, for example, Coley et al. (2021) found that greater family income was associated with residence in neighborhoods with greater numbers of educational resources such as schools, child care centers, and tutoring programs; such educational resources were in turn linked with heightened cognitive skills at kindergarten entry. Other research has found that lower income families live in neighborhoods served by schools with worse school climate and less experienced and qualified teachers (Owens, 2016;Owens & Candipan, 2019), and attend schools with more limited resources and fewer high achieving peers compared to their peers from higher income families (Bischoff & Owens, 2019;Owens, 2018). ...
... These differences in children's neighborhood educational opportunities across racial groups are only part of the broader story of inequities shown in these data. Extending prior work (Bischoff & Owens, 2019;Chetty & Hendren, 2018b;Ingels et al., 2002;Owens, 2018Owens, , 2020, we found that children's family SES was also associated with increased access to neighborhood educational opportunity. However, these associations were far stronger for neighborhood educational opportunities related to early and primary school education and weaker for secondary school educational opportunity. ...
Racial disparities in access to educational opportunity have been an enduring issue in the United States. In recent decades, neighborhood and school racial segregation have remained robust, while economic segregation has increased, reinforcing disparate access to educational opportunities and quality schooling. Using a nationally representative sample of White (52.2%), Black (13.3%), Latinx (25.0%), and Asian (4.1%) children entering kindergarten in 2010 (drawn from the ECLS-K 2011, N≈17,100) merged with national administrative data, we provide a rich descriptive portrait of racial, socioeconomic, and intersectional disparities in young children’s access to neighborhood educational opportunity, considering three measures of educational opportunity focused on key developmental stages. Unadjusted differences evidenced moderate to large racial and socioeconomic disparities in access to educational opportunity assessed through neighborhood-level early childhood education enrollment, primary school achievement, and secondary school attainment, with Asian and White children having greater access to neighborhood educational opportunity than their Black and Latinx peers. These patterns were largely replicated adjusting for child, family, and contextual covariates. Results further indicated that returns to family socioeconomic status were strongest among Asian and Latinx children versus their White and Black peers. The greater socioeconomic inequality in neighborhood educational opportunity among Asian and Latinx children may reflect the heightened heterogeneity in nationality, generational status, ethnicity, and culture among these diverse pan-ethnic groups. Results indicating that SES payoffs in neighborhood educational opportunity are not shared across all racial groups highlight the need for continuing efforts to increase equitable opportunities for all children.
... Finally, we extend the existing literature by examining heterogeneity in the effects of preterm birth on school grades by family resources and school district characteristics. Specifically, we consider parental education and employment, household income, and average grades for school districts, all of which proxy the social and financial resources that foster positive educational outcomes for children (Bischoff and Owens 2019). This allows us to determine the extent to which the negative effects of preterm birth are concentrated among children raised in disadvantaged families or who attend schools where social and financial resources are more restricted (lowering the overall quality of schooling that children can receive). ...
... From a policy perspective, it is also valuable to understand which types of institutions or interventions may mitigate the effects of early-life disadvantage. Financial and social resources available in school districts have been identified as crucial for diminishing the inequality of opportunities between children (Bischoff and Owens 2019). School districts are administrative units that determine education funding, which affects the quality of teaching and school management, as well as the locally available facilities and extracurricular offerings for children. ...
... Due to peer effects (Sacerdote 2011), children's outcomes may be shaped by the characteristics and behaviours of other children in the school district. In addition, peers and the parents of peers may influence local authorities and advocate for better personnel or budgetary decisions and improved access to extracurricular activities that benefit all children attending schools in the district (Bischoff and Owens 2019). The evidence suggests that contextual measures of schooling quality based on average grades correlate strongly with later-life outcomes, such as college attendance rates or earnings (Chetty et al. 2011), including in the Swedish context (Jonsson and Mood 2008). ...
Although preterm birth is the leading cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality in advanced economies, evidence about the consequences of prematurity in later life is limited. Using Swedish registers for cohorts born 1982–94 (N = 1,087,750), we examine the effects of preterm birth on school grades at age 16 using sibling fixed effects models. We further examine how school grades are affected by degree of prematurity and the compensating roles of family socio-economic resources and characteristics of school districts. Our results show that the negative effects of preterm birth are observed mostly among children born extremely preterm (<28 weeks); children born moderately preterm (32–<37 weeks) suffer no ill effects. We do not find any evidence for a moderating effect of parental socio-economic resources. Children born extremely preterm and in the top decile of school districts achieve as good grades as children born at full term in an average school district.
Supplementary material for this article is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2022.2080247.
... In contrast to segregation within school districts, socioeconomic segregation among school districts can be more readily assessed. Scholars typically draw on census data on family income for school-age students in each US school district (Bischoff & Owens, 2019, p. 1642Reardon & Owens, 2014, p. 7). Between-district school segregation among public school students increased during the 1990s and 2000s in 75 of the 100 largest metropolitan areas, a trend most pronounced by the growing isolation of poor children from children in middle and high-income MIJS AND ROE -7 of 16 families (Owens, 2018;Reardon & Owens, 2014, p. 205). ...
... Strikingly, the most educated states are often also the most segregated. For instance, Massachusetts (a state with a high level of educational attainment) has one of the highest levels of income segregation among school districts, whereas Louisiana, where levels of educational attainment are considerably lower, has a much lower level of income segregation (Bischoff & Owens, 2019, p. 1648. ...
... School segregation separates students both from other students and from adults of different socioeconomic groups. In a longitudinal study, Bischoff and Owens (2019) measured how students from different socioeconomic backgrounds had different levels of exposure to adults with at least bachelor's degrees and to adults experiencing unemployment. They find a large gap between poor and affluent children (tenth and first decile of the family income distribution, respectively) in exposure to highly educated adults, increasing from 7.3 in 1990 to 11.3 percentage points in 2014 (Bischoff & Owens, 2019, p. 1648. ...
As income inequality in the United States has reached an all‐time high, commentators from across the political spectrum warn about the social implications of these economic changes. America, they fear, is “coming apart” as the gap between the rich and poor grows into a fault line. This paper provides a comprehensive review of empirical scholarship in sociology, education, demography, and economics in order to address the question: How have five decades of growing economic inequality shaped America's social landscape? We find that growing levels of income inequality have been accompanied by increasing socioeconomic segregation across (1) friendship networks and romantic partners, (2) residential neighborhoods, (3) K‐12 and university education, and (4) workplaces and the labor market. The trends documented in this review give substance to commentators' concerns: compared to the 1970s, rich and poor Americans today are less likely to know one another and to share the same social spaces. The United States is a nation divided.
... The second highest among all states (excluding D.C.) (U.S. Census). In addition, the state suffers from income segregation through a system of public services, planning, and infrastructures managed at the town level, which contributes to retain these vast inequalities (Bischoff and Owens, 2019;Boggs, 2017). ...
... 6. Access to a reliable grid Connecticut consistently ranks among the most unequal states in the U.S. by income (Sommeiller and Price, 2018;U.S. Census, 2019). The state is also organized with a highly income-segregated structure which governs the provision and access to multiple services, including school access and infrastructure management (Owens, 2019), thus impairing social mobility (Bischoff and Owens, 2019). Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy was undergoing a rapid electrification (Blonsky et al., 2019;Jenkins et al., 2018), thus making its reliability a key element for economic development (Cohen et al., 2018). ...
Grid resilience and reliability are pivotal in the transition to low and zero carbon energy systems. Tree-trimming operations (TTOs) have become a pivotal tool for increasing the resilience power grids, especially in highly forested regions. Building on recent literature, we aim at assessing the temporal and spatial extents of the benefits that TTOs produce on the grid from three perspectives: the frequency, extent, and duration of outages. We use a unique dataset provided by Eversource Energy, New England's largest utility company, with outage events from 2009 to 2015. We employ spatial econometrics to investigate both the legacy and spatial extent of TTOs. Our results show TTOs benefits occur for all three metrics for at least 4 years, and benefits spillover to up to 2 km throughout the treated areas, with significant spatial spillovers across the state greater than direct effects. Implications lead to supporting TTOs as part of the hardening policies for utility companies, especially as home-based activities increase in importance in a post-COVID19 world.
... Increased and flexible school funding has emerged as a potential, albeit controversial (e.g., Coleman et al., 1966;Hanushek et al., 1996), solution for bridging opportunity gaps as schools with increased resources can hire and retain quality teachers and school leaders, offer more comprehensive curriculum and extracurricular materials, and maintain higher quality facilities (Bischoff & Owens, 2019). Studies show that gaps in test score proficiency between students from different socioeconomic strata are smaller in states and districts where funding reform initiatives based on equity have taken root (Card & Payne, 2002;Lafortune et al., 2018), and that policies aiming to equalize financial resources between students with highand low-income backgrounds have thus far been effective (Bischoff & Owens, 2019). ...
... Increased and flexible school funding has emerged as a potential, albeit controversial (e.g., Coleman et al., 1966;Hanushek et al., 1996), solution for bridging opportunity gaps as schools with increased resources can hire and retain quality teachers and school leaders, offer more comprehensive curriculum and extracurricular materials, and maintain higher quality facilities (Bischoff & Owens, 2019). Studies show that gaps in test score proficiency between students from different socioeconomic strata are smaller in states and districts where funding reform initiatives based on equity have taken root (Card & Payne, 2002;Lafortune et al., 2018), and that policies aiming to equalize financial resources between students with highand low-income backgrounds have thus far been effective (Bischoff & Owens, 2019). School finance reform, constructed through equity-based funding formulas such as California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), has the potential to address some inequities that exist in urban schools (Vasquez Heilig et al., 2017). ...
School finance reform has recently centered on providing schools with more equitable access to resources to reduce opportunity gaps for students. Although special education is often a prominent part of larger equity conversations, special education funding is commonly excluded from school funding reform initiatives. Given the costly nature of special education programs, it is imperative that scholars and policy makers understand the effects of funding changes on outcomes for these students. In this study, we examined the effect of California’s Local Control Funding Formula, in addition to school context and student compositional characteristics, to identify changes in special education students’ achievement rates. Using a combination of publicly available data sources and local district data, we assessed differences in academic outcomes (i.e., achievement scores) between elementary students with and without disabilities in both high- and low-poverty schools, given increases in spending for special education programs.
... Recent studies, such as those by Bischoff and Owens (2019), continue to address persistent social resource gaps exacerbated by income segregation, indicating ongoing challenges in achieving educational equity. ...
This study addresses the pervasive issue of socioeconomic disparities in children's language development, drawing from a wide array of literature. The problem statement highlights the consistent findings indicating a substantial lag in language skills among children from low socioeconomic backgrounds compared to their affluent peers by age three. The main aim of this research is to underscore the necessity of tailored interventions aimed at bridging this gap and fostering language growth among economically disadvantaged children. The significance of the study lies in its emphasis on the crucial role of early parent-child communication quality, the impact of poverty on cognitive development and academic performance, the influence of caregiver input quality, and the differences in access to educational resources based on socioeconomic status. Methodologically, this research incorporates a comprehensive review of relevant literature, synthesizing insights from various studies conducted by researchers such as Hirsh-Pasek (2015), Miller (1995), Leroy (2017), Zimmerman (2017), and Suskind (2015). Findings underscore the importance of parental involvement and targeted interventions in improving language environments and outcomes for children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Implications of this research include the urgent need for policy interventions and support systems aimed at addressing the enduring consequences of poverty on children's learning and cognitive growth, as well as the promotion of equitable access to educational resources and high-quality caregiver interactions.
... Equity and access to resources are major concerns in the context of CLCs, where financial disparities often prevent students from obtaining essential learning materials like textbooks. Bischoff and Owens (2019) and Darling-Hammond (2018) suggest that addressing such issues requires a combination of government policies, partnerships and donor initiatives to ensure that all students have equal access to educational resources. Open educational resources (OER) and digital platforms offer promising solutions by making high-quality educational content more accessible and affordable, helping to bridge the gap between students from different socio-economic backgrounds (Bali et al., 2020). ...
The study focused on the effects of resource constraints on the teaching and learning of Grade 12 Mathematics in Gauteng Community Learning Centres (CLCs) in South Africa. It highlighted the historical and socioeconomic context of apartheid and its enduring effects on educational inequalities. The lack of resources in CLCs, including substandard facilities, scarcity of teaching materials, and under-resourced teachers, was identified as a persistent issue. Grade 12 Mathematics is a vital subject for higher education and career paths, and proposed solutions include using deliverology and implementation science to mitigate these challenges. The methodology involved a multiple-case study design, with semi-structured interviews conducted with Grade 12 Mathematics teachers in CLCs in the Gauteng North region. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data gathered from the interviews. The findings highlighted a severe lack of resources in CLCs, reliance on outdated and borrowed materials, and a heavy burden on teachers to supply resources. Challenges included limited access to basic materials, financial and logistical strains on teachers, and a negative impact on teaching quality. Furthermore, the implications of these findings suggest that addressing resource constraints through these frameworks could significantly enhance the quality of Mathematics education in CLCs. The study recommends a strategic approach using deliverology and implementation science, focusing on structured goal setting, capacity building, stakeholder engagement, continuous improvement, policy advocacy, and technology integration to improve Grade 12 Mathematics delivery. These recommendations are aimed at mitigating the adverse effects of resource constraints and improving the teaching and learning of Grade 12 Mathematics in CLCs.
... Variability in Program Implementation and Quality: A key limitation of existing DHE studies is the variability in program implementation and education quality. (Bischoff & Owens, 2019) showed that success depends on consistency and resources, with poorer outcomes in regions lacking financial and educational support. Future research should standardize DHE protocols, identify best practices, and evaluate the minimum resources needed for effective interventions, guiding policymakers in resource allocation for underserved areas. ...
Dental caries is a significant public health issue among adolescents in Indonesia, exacerbated by limited access to preventive dental care and oral health education. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of Dental Health Education (DHE) programs in reducing the prevalence of dental caries among Indonesian adolescents. Using a qualitative research approach with secondary data analysis, the study reviews findings from existing literature and reports. The findings indicate that well-implemented DHE programs can reduce dental caries prevalence by 30% to 35%, with significant improvements in oral hygiene behaviors. However, factors such as geographic location, socioeconomic status, and cultural beliefs impact the success or failure of these programs. Rural and low-income communities face additional challenges in accessing dental care and educational resources. Technological innovations, including mobile health platforms, interactive apps, and SMS reminders, have shown promise in enhancing the delivery and effectiveness of DHE programs by making them more accessible and engaging. In conclusion, the success of DHE programs depends on addressing contextual barriers and incorporating technological solutions to improve reach and sustainability.
... Several studies have suggested that increases in income-based residential segregation in major metropolitan areas is quite substantial (Comandon & Veneri, 2021) and increasing (Reardon & Bischoff, 2011a, b). Greater concentration of wealth and poverty in given geographic areas can lead to major differences in access to resources, with clear implications for schools (Bischoff & Owens, 2019). The joint n rise of residential and school segregation may be reflective of a broader social trend in which there is increasing isolation of persons by SES across all walks of life (Mijs & Roe, 2020). 2 Conceptualizing Socioeconomic Segregation 15 All of the studies mentioned above were focused on compositional effects (classroom or school SES) and their relationship to school processes, not SES segregation per se. ...
After explaining the suitability of International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) studies for examining school socioeconomic segregation, we describe and apply a set of measures for estimating within- and between-school segregation at the country level. We develop separate estimates for segregation based on definitions of socioeconomic status (SES) that are absolute (i.e., constant across countries) and relative (i.e., vary by country). These measures suggest that SES segregation is quite common across countries, grade levels, and definitions of SES status. We also find that SES segregation is fairly stable across time within each country, and that between-school estimates of SES segregation may be biased downwards.
... Several studies have suggested that increases in income-based residential segregation in major metropolitan areas is quite substantial (Comandon & Veneri, 2021) and increasing (Reardon & Bischoff, 2011a, b). Greater concentration of wealth and poverty in given geographic areas can lead to major differences in access to resources, with clear implications for schools (Bischoff & Owens, 2019). The joint n rise of residential and school segregation may be reflective of a broader social trend in which there is increasing isolation of persons by SES across all walks of life (Mijs & Roe, 2020). 2 Conceptualizing Socioeconomic Segregation 15 All of the studies mentioned above were focused on compositional effects (classroom or school SES) and their relationship to school processes, not SES segregation per se. ...
The chapter lays out the main themes of the book, pointing to errors that are frequently made in understanding school segregation. By focusing on socioeconomic segregation, we can develop a broad cross-national conception of student sorting that takes into account formal and informal systems of segregation. This chapter notes the distinction between within-school and between-school segregation, as well as the potential for segregation that occurs in earlier grades. After reviewing the motivation for employing International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) studies, we review some limitations with our approach. We conclude with an outline of the book.
... Several studies have suggested that increases in income-based residential segregation in major metropolitan areas is quite substantial (Comandon & Veneri, 2021) and increasing (Reardon & Bischoff, 2011a, b). Greater concentration of wealth and poverty in given geographic areas can lead to major differences in access to resources, with clear implications for schools (Bischoff & Owens, 2019). The joint n rise of residential and school segregation may be reflective of a broader social trend in which there is increasing isolation of persons by SES across all walks of life (Mijs & Roe, 2020). 2 Conceptualizing Socioeconomic Segregation 15 All of the studies mentioned above were focused on compositional effects (classroom or school SES) and their relationship to school processes, not SES segregation per se. ...
In this chapter we discuss the obstacles to effective measurement of socioeconomic status (SES) segregation or analysis of the influence of SES segregation on student outcomes. One key difficulty is the operationalization of the SES construct. Another is the lack of robust longitudinal individual-level data that links students to classrooms and schools, and that has sufficient scope to measure within-school sorting by SES. We also discuss how even the preliminary estimates of SES segregation pose serious challenges to researchers and policymakers.
... Several studies have suggested that increases in income-based residential segregation in major metropolitan areas is quite substantial (Comandon & Veneri, 2021) and increasing (Reardon & Bischoff, 2011a, b). Greater concentration of wealth and poverty in given geographic areas can lead to major differences in access to resources, with clear implications for schools (Bischoff & Owens, 2019). The joint n rise of residential and school segregation may be reflective of a broader social trend in which there is increasing isolation of persons by SES across all walks of life (Mijs & Roe, 2020). 2 Conceptualizing Socioeconomic Segregation 15 All of the studies mentioned above were focused on compositional effects (classroom or school SES) and their relationship to school processes, not SES segregation per se. ...
In this chapter we use multiple waves of International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) data to examine two hypotheses: (1) that there is an inverse relationship between a country’s average achievement and average between-school socioeconomic status (SES) segregation (the “equity-efficiency tradeoff”), and (2) that SES segregation is associated with greater inequality of outcomes. We employ a multi-model approach, including correlation, individual and country-level fixed-effects regression and synthetic cohort analysis, as well as applying multiple measures of SES segregation. We find very little evidence for the equity-efficiency tradeoff, but some support for the inegalitarian effects of sorting students by socioeconomic background.
... Ogundari & Awokuse (2018), observed that human resources have declined not only in quality but also in health and nutritional status, which has an impact on decreasing productivity ( Figure 2). As posited by Bischoff & Owens (2019), disparities in capabilities, opportunities, and resources are the root cause of poverty. Adjei et al. (2020), found that poverty alleviation is unattainable due to the inadequacy of human resources, the absence of a comprehensive social protection system, the prevalence of groups affected by social exclusion, and the vast discrepancies between regions and social groups, among other factors. ...
Poverty alleviation is an important priority for governments. Encouraging manufacturing growth is often seen as an effective strategy to alleviate poverty. However, the impact of such growth on poverty rates in Sumatra Island remains unclear. This study analyze the impact of manufacturing growth on poverty rates in 10 provinces in Sumatra Island, using secondary data from 2008 to 2022. Using the quantitative approach and panel data regression analysis, the results show that industrial growth in Sumatra Island, although not significant, has an impact on poverty reduction. However, industrial growth can indirectly absorb labor. Labor and education variables have a negative and significant effect on poverty. These findings highlight the need for policy interventions focusing on vocational education and training, infrastructure improvement, economic diversification, labor policies, and local community empowerment to effectively reduce poverty.
... Increased funding for schools has been seen as having a potential but controversial solution to narrowing the opportunity gap through retaining qualified teachers, administrators, and increasing access to high quality curriculum and better facilities (e.g., Bischoff & Owens, 2019). While LEAs are given funds to purchase various resources to support MLLs, the very limited literature on education funding for MLLs have highlighted that "teacher salaries account for the largest share of school expenditures and are arguably the most important input in the educational process" (Imazeki & Reschovsky, 2005, p. 110). ...
States and districts share an obligation to provide Multilingual Learners (MLLs) with access to high quality language programs that are proven to be effective in minimizing opportunity gaps
between MLLs and non-MLLs. This article reviews how local education agencies (LEAs) allocated their state-issued funding to improve MLL language programs and increase student
outcomes. Findings reveal that of the total state-issued MLL funding, LEAs used 88.7% on teacher salaries and benefits, 5.1% on teacher professional development, 4.9% on language
program implementation, 0% on language program evaluation, and a small percentage of funding remained unspecified. Collectively, these findings indicate that LEAs did not adhere to the state’s funding policies, nor did the state follow their own policies to regulate the LEAs’ expenditures. We close with a discussion on how the state can improve their function as an organizational leader and serve as a model for other stakeholders in the shared obligation of the education of MLLs.
... • I-PACE subscales were associated with both child social and emotional skills and behavioural problems. The COVID-19 pandemic has both exposed and exacerbated major pre-existing inequalities in children's early environments (e.g., Bischoff & Owens, 2019;Memmott et al., 2021). Strengthening the economic argument for investing in the early years (e.g., Heckman, 2011) low-cost interventions can boost parental support for young children's development and adjustment (e.g., McCoy et al., 2020;Dowdall et al., 2021;Scott et al., 2010). ...
Time pressures make brevity important for parent self-report measures, yet evidence highlights the multi-faceted nature of parenting and contextual influences. To straddle these competing goals, we developed a brief (23-item) yet broad Index of Parental Activities, Context, and Experiences (I-PACE) aimed at parents of toddlers and pre-schoolers. In two studies we assessed the validity and reliability of the I-PACE. Study 1 involved 870 caregivers (95% female, 75% with degrees, 90% White British) and examined I-PACE ratings alongside; (a) ratings of children’s social-emotional skills and behavior problems; and (b) child age and parental depressive symptoms, to assess its sensitivity to contrasts in child development and parental experience. Study 2 included 191 families with 14-month-olds, for whom 188 mothers and 178 fathers completed the I-PACE and an index of life satisfaction. Supporting the replicability of findings from the I-PACE, both studies showed the same differentiated 5-factor structure (i.e., parental experiences, parenting activities, home environment quality, neighborhood environment quality and childcare environment quality). Supporting the I-PACE’s validity, Study 1 showed that all 5 factors were independently related to both children’s social-emotional skills and behavior problems, with predicted associations with child age and parental depressive symptoms. Supporting the I-PACE’s inter-rater reliability, within-couple associations were significant for parenting activities, home environment, neighborhood quality and childcare quality. Together, these findings indicate that the I-PACE offers a broad yet brief index of early parenting with good psychometric properties and we discuss promising avenues for future research.
... Educational disparity between public K-12 schools in high-income and low-income regions is expanding. School funding, derived in part from local property taxes, significantly influences resource allocation, impacting teacher quality, counseling services, curriculum, technology, and extracurricular activities (Bischoff & Owens, 2019). Bowling et al. (2019) observed substantial reductions in public school funding due to property tax caps in Indiana, leading to enrollment declines and affecting minority student populations. ...
This mixed methods convergent program evaluation aimed to comprehensively assess the effectiveness of the SPARKS program, investigating stakeholder sentiments and student outcomes in academics, behavior, and attendance. Grounded in Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory (1977), the study utilized a convergent mixed-methodology approach guided by Creswell and Plano Clark's (2017) design principles. For the qualitative aspect, focus groups were conducted with SPARKS program stakeholders, including principals and social workers. The SPARKS principal focus groups involved 14 participants, representing 90% of SPARKS school site principals (n = 14), while the SPARKS social worker focus groups included 23 participants, constituting 77% of SPARKS school site social workers. Among the participating SPARKS school site principals (n = 11), 79% were female, and 21% were male (n = 3). Conversely, among the SPARKS school site social workers in the focus groups (n = 21), 91% were female, and 9% were male (n = 2). Qualitative thematic analysis identified key themes related to program efficacy, such as Communication Between Program Stakeholders, Stakeholders' Perceptions of Program Buy-in, and Allocation and use of Program Funds. These themes collectively revealed a communication breakdown among stakeholders. Quantitative analyses, including Linear Regressions, Independent Samples T-test, and Chi-Square Test of Independence, were performed on a matched sample of students (n = 6,423 for reading/ELA and n = 5,334 for mathematics) comparing SPARKS and non-SPARKS students. The results aligned with qualitative findings, indicating challenges in academic performance, behavior, and attendance for SPARKS students compared to their non-SPARKS peers. In conclusion, the study emphasizes significant challenges faced by the SPARKS program, particularly in communicating programmatic functions, goals, stakeholder roles and responsibilities, and overall efficacy.
... This section explores the presense of spatial variation in the association between rurality and intergenerational mobility. The hypothesis for spatially-varying associations between intergenerational mobility and rurality is plausible given recent county-level evidence that regional norms and historical experiences have long-term effects on intergenerational mobility (Berger & Engzell, 2019;Connor & Storper, 2020;Leonard & Smith, 2021), and also the growing literature on the impact of state policy contexts on childhood development and social stratification processes (Bischoff & Owens, 2019;Jackson & Schneider, 2022). We test for these relationships across two separate specifications that allows places to have different intercepts and slopes for rurality with respect to income mobility, across states in the first specification, and across counties in the second. ...
Children born into poverty in rural America achieve higher average income levels as adults than their urban peers. As economic opportunity tends to be more abundant in cities, this "rural advantage" in income mobility seems paradoxical. This article resolves this puzzle by applying multilevel analysis to new spatial measures of rurality and place-level data on intergenerational income mobility. We show that the high level of rural income mobility is principally driven by boys of rural-origin, who are more likely than their urban peers to grow up in communities with a predominance of two-parent households. The rural advantage is most pronounced among Whites and Hispanics, as well as those who were raised in the middle of the country. However, these dynamics are more nuanced for girls. In fact, girls from lower-income rural households exhibit a disadvantage in their personal income attainment, partly due to the persistence of traditional gender norms. These findings underscore the importance of communities with strong household and community supports in facilitating later-life income mobility, particularly for boys. They also challenge the emerging consensus that attributes the rural income mobility advantage to migration from poorer rural areas to wealthier towns and cities.
... That is, through a range of school allocation methods that segregate low SES students into low socioeconomic schools, the likelihood that low SES students will achieve poor academic results is increased. At the same time, schooling systems may moderate compositional effects through the targeting of resources to (dis)advantaged schools (Bischoff and Owens 2019). ...
... While the need to allocate resources to improve the quality of education in low-income, low-skilled areas is obvious. However, as others have pointed out, pooling and recapture programs, property tax equalization, and Title I funding programs aim to reduce local school district funding disparities and moderate the adverse effects of socioeconomic segregation (Bischoff & Owens, 2019;Jang & Reardon, 2019;Jordan et al., 2014). Furthermore, students need opportunities to create inter-class social ties across all geographic locations, particularly in urban cores and rural areas. ...
This study offers a new perspective on the geography of American class by examining the spatial
arrangement of the professional-managerial class (PMC) across unified K-12 public school
districts. The study aims to understand how PMC and non-PMC households are spatially
distributed across school districts and whether these patterns align with existing
conceptualizations of the American class structure, notably those put forth by Lind (2020). Using
an index based on educational attainment, homeownership, and earnings, the study sheds light on
the reproduction of class position and the spatial distribution of PMC families in American K-12
unified school districts. The study finds that members of the PMC tend to cluster around urban
areas in school districts with other PMCs, giving them greater access to class peer social
networks and more desirable educational programs geared towards college preparation, resulting
in better job opportunities, higher incomes, social ties and the preservation of class position
across generations. They underscore the importance of addressing socioeconomic segregation
across school districts to ensure that all American schoolchildren have access to a high-quality
education that enables them to flourish. They have important implications for national stability,
security, and civic health. Furthermore, they highlight the need for a fair, effective, and
responsive K-12 education system that serves all American schoolchildren, regardless of
background.
... Despite the benefits, resistance and the dismantling of desegregation programs through United States educational policies and practices have allowed the resurgence of segregation in school districts throughout the nation (Gamoran & An, 2016;Hahn et al., 2018;Taylor et al., 2019). Continual gaps between affluent and underserved school districts connect to fiscal and social disparities (Bischoff & Owens, 2019). These limitations influence the availability of resources to close achievement gaps for populations impacted by social and environmental factors. ...
Fuller Hamilton et al. (2015) review provided a suggested model to improve Career and Technical Education (CTE) equity so that this study could be replicated systematically. National resources examining CTE educational equity components did not exist. The problem addressed in the replication study was the need to explore educational inequity within the South Carolina CTE Health Science career cluster. No CTE educational equity research exists in South Carolina, so the purpose of the replication study was to explore educational inequity within the South Carolina CTE Health Science career cluster. Cultural Replication Theory was the conceptual framework used for this replication study. Four research questions were formulated to examine the CTE enrollment patterns in South Carolina concerning four demographic characteristics, namely sex, race/ethnicity, region, and socioeconomic status. Students enrolled in CTE within South Carolina during the 2018-19 school year was the population selected. Secondary data was collected from a sample of 196,318 CTE enrollees and examined using descriptive analysis procedures. Overall results were not uniform. Inconsistent levels of inequity existed within race, ethnicity, and sex. In addition, inequity was present regarding regional effects and socioeconomic status. Future recommendations for research include conducting a qualitative or mixed-method study to further explain the enrollment patterns of CTE programs in South Carolina. Implications for practice to address the inequities in South Carolina include improving the underrepresentation of educators by sex and race/ethnicity, recommending equity audits, examination of access and availability of opportunities within CTE programs, and encouragement of all educators actively adopting and advancing an equity agenda from the original study.
... During the five-year period, the political environment was stable. Income inequality may increase the link between income potential and school quality [11,12]. This paper will analyze the factors of social mobility from the perspectives of education, income potential and political power. ...
... In this paper, we are particularly attentive to the relevance of differential financial resources (Bischoff & Owens, 2019) and class-based discrimination when considering online education during the pandemic. Thinking about class inequality in children's lives is frequently informed by Pierre Bourdieu and his concept of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1983(Bourdieu, /2001Fitzmaurice et al., 2020;Lareau, 1987;Lareau & Weininger, 2003), which we have found useful in writing this paper. ...
Drawing on biweekly interviews with thirty children from Southern Ontario, Canada, from diverse backgrounds and most of whom were between 8 years old and 15 years old, our paper discusses children’s educational experiences when schooling shifted online during the first few months of the pandemic. We focus on the challenges and opportunities that were offered during that time, with a particular focus on how these were significantly shaped by inequality. We address the following key themes, all with attention to related inequalities: shifts in children’s engagement with space and time; differential availability of help when faced with challenges in online schooling; missing school friends, peers, and teachers and strategies to remain connected; and finally, how some on- and offline schooling activities, as well as independent, explorative learning, helped the children to enjoy their online schooling.
... Research in the United States and Europe alike describes how adolescents' school performance and views of their future are (positively) shaped by social networks in schools and neighborhoods, the availability of positive role models, and negatively impacted by violence and other sources of stress and anxiety (Chetty, Hendren, and Katz 2016;De Vuijst and van Ham 2019;Kling, Hendren, and Katz 2005;Nieuwenhuis and Hooimeijer 2016;Paulle 2013;Raabe and Wölfer 2019;Sharkey and Elwert 2011). Socioeconomic school segregation-from elementary school (Owens 2017) to university (Gelbgiser 2021)-means that valuable cultural resources that are available to middle-class children are often unavailable to poor and working class youth (Bischoff and Owens 2019;Boterman et al. 2019;Saporito 2017). ...
Objective:
Family, school, and neighborhood contexts provide cultural resources that may foster children's ambitions and bolster their academic performance. Reference group theory instead highlights how seemingly positive settings can depress educational aspirations, expectations, and performance. We test these competing claims.
Methods:
We test these claims using the British Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (N = 4968).
Results:
Results are broadly in line with the cultural resource perspective. However, important exceptions to this pattern point to reference group processes for children from low-educated parents, whose academic aspirations are especially low when they either attended an affluent school or lived in an affluent neighborhood-but not both, and for children from highly educated parents attending poor schools, whose realistic expectations of the future are higher than their peers in affluent schools.
Conclusion:
The resource perspective strongly predicts adolescents' (ideas about) education, but reference group processes also play an important role in neighborhoods and schools.
... It is possible that a private market will never adequately provide housing for all (Engels 1935), but what decades of the HCVP have revealed is that simply giving the most disadvantaged home seekers more market power does not lead to residential integration. With the geography of opportunity in contemporary American cities so profoundly segregated (Bischoff and Owens 2019), it seems doubtful that the HCVP or any other program that does not address supply will succeed. ...
Using a unique data set of millions of advertisements for rental housing and data on the geographic distribution of housing voucher holders, we examine the limits of housing market policies that rely on private-market landlords to meet public needs. We find that although advertised affordable housing is more prevalent in some zip codes than others, voucher households are more geographically clustered than affordable housing. Moreover, voucher holders are overly concentrated in “lower opportunity” zip codes, those with fewer resources for children’s well-being, despite the advertisement of affordable housing in higher opportunity neighborhoods. Using text-analysis techniques, we identify advertisements that explicitly accept or reject voucher holders and find that ads seeking voucher-holding tenants are overrepresented in lower opportunity neighborhoods. We evaluate the significance of these findings for theories of predatory inclusion.
... That is, through a range of school allocation methods that segregate low SES students into low socioeconomic schools, the likelihood that low SES students will achieve poor academic results is increased. At the same time, schooling systems may moderate compositional effects through the targeting of resources to (dis)advantaged schools (Bischoff and Owens 2019). ...
International research has consistently found that the socioeconomic segregation of schools may worsen inequalities in schooling outcomes through the socioeconomic compositional effect. This study examines whether the socioeconomic compositional effect varies between developed countries and potential mechanisms by which national schooling systems moderate its effect. The results suggest that the socioeconomic compositional effect does vary between developed countries and that national differences in its size were partially explained by policies of tracking age and the proportion of students that attend public schools. We conclude schooling systems in developed countries would require substantial reform to reduce the detrimental effects of school composition on disadvantaged students.
... In line with the social capital and neo-material perspectives, income inequality may undermine support for public schools (Epple & Romano, 1996;Goldin & Katz, 1997). Income inequality has also been found to increase housing segregation by income (Reardon & Bischoff, 2011), which can lead to a greater division between well-funded public schools and under-funded public schools (Bischoff & Owens, 2019;Owens & Candipan, 2019). Research has found the social class and racial-ethnic composition of the student body that attends a school influences the amount of learning (Dumont & Ready, 2020;Willms, 2010). ...
Social scientists have found income inequality is associated with an array of health and social problems, however the implications of income inequality for educational outcomes have not been investigated as thoroughly as other domains. In this study, I investigated how income inequality was associated with 4th grade academic achievement using state level data from the 1992 through 2019 rounds of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). First, using an ordinary least squares modelling approach I found students in states with higher income inequality had lower average mathematics achievement, but not reading achievement. To control for stable, unobserved differences between states I estimated state fixed effects models that examined variation within states over time. States that experienced larger increases in income inequality experienced smaller increases in mathematics test scores, but not reading scores. I discuss the implications of income inequality for efforts to raise achievement among school children.
... Annual teacher salary was unrelated to county rankings on quality of life or health behavior. Higher per-pupil spending may reflect compensatory funding by states -i.e., states allocate greater resources to school districts that enroll more poor students [54]. This compensatory funding may allow poorer counties to adequately educate students, which could, in turn, shape community norms around health behavior and improve quality of life for county residents. ...
Background
Stark inequalities in health and wellbeing exist across US counties. Schools are a key feature of counties and residents often make decisions about where to live based on the quality of the local schools. How counties invest in their local schools may reflect one way that health and wellbeing become embedded in geographic places.
Methods
We constructed four indicators of county-level education context using administrative data from all US public schools and linked these to population health data from the RWJF County Health Rankings and Roadmaps Program. Using state-fixed effects spatial error models, we examined if county-level education context relates to county rankings on two indices of population health and wellbeing – quality of life and health behaviors – after adjusting for county-level demographic, economic, and social contexts.
Results
Total county revenue from local sources and the percentage of a county's high school students enrolled in advanced placement coursework were associated with better county rankings on quality of life and health behavior. We also found a curvilinear relationship between county-level per-pupil spending and county rankings on our population health and wellbeing outcomes. In fully adjusted models, the education context indicators were attenuated; all three remained significantly associated with county rankings on health behavior, but only revenue from local sources was significantly associated with county rankings on quality of life.
Conclusion
Providing a quality education context may yield health and wellbeing dividends at the county-level given the public education system's far-reaching influence on social and economic wellbeing.
In this chapter, we present a justification for the potential importance of socioeconomic segregation in schools. We present a model for the role of schools in society based on normative theory, in which educational institutions serve to legitimize basic institutions. We then review the extensive research literature on how the capacity of schools to mediate background inequalities, and how socioeconomic segregation may partly explain why schools struggle to do so. This evidence is used to build up a conceptual approach to studying socioeconomic segregation.
This study aims to investigate the impact of China’s long-term care insurance (LTCI) pilot on household expenditures of the elderly. Utilizing the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2015–2020 three-period longitudinal panel data, we examine the policy effects of LTCI using the Differences-in-Differences(DID) approach. The results indicate that the implementation of LTCI significantly reduces medical (p < 0.05) and healthcare expenditures (p < 0.05) for elderly households, while substantially increasing non-medical healthcare expenditures (p < 0.01) and total expenditures (p < 0.01). This effect is more pronounced for older households in rural areas or with lower levels of education. Furthermore, the improvement in household expenditures is strongly associated with the health status of the elderly and intergenerational economic support. These findings provide empirical evidence that LTCI enhances household expenditures and the quality of life for the elderly, which is crucial for the development of LTCI in China and other middle-income developing countries.
Natural mentoring relationships are characterized as organic, committed, and long-term connections with non-parental adult figures within schools and the community. The objective of this qualitative descriptive design study is to understand how males of color in a mentoring program articulate the support they received in their social-emotional, cognitive, and identity development through natural mentoring relationships during the transition from high school to college in Central Florida. Eleven male students of color took part in individual semi-structured and follow-up focus group interviews. Thematic analysis of the interview helped the author develop themes, forming the basis of the study’s outcomes. The findings underscore the significance of fostering the social, emotional, cognitive, and identity competencies of males of color through a natural mentoring approach. However, the study suggests the need for continued support for males of color after the transition to college, addressing challenges such as financial barriers and the absence of long-term support systems, which hinder their graduation. In response, the author proposes the Natural Mentoring Model for Males of Color (NMMMC) transitioning to college, derived from the distinctive experiences of male students of color who successfully transitioned to college with the support of natural mentoring relationships.
Extending work documenting historical resource inequities across U.S. schools, we examined how school financial and social resources mediate the relationship between family income and student achievement, and tested how these associations varied by race and ethnicity. Merging administrative school data sources to a nationally representative sample of U.S. elementary students, and employing structural equation modeling, we found that family income selected all children into more highly socially resourced schools, with significantly stronger effects for White children relative to students of color. Contrary to expectations, school financial and social resources were not significantly associated overall with achievement.
We examine how the racial wealth gap interacts with financial aid in American higher education to generate a disparate impact on college access and outcomes. Retirement savings and home equity are excluded from the formula used to estimate the amount a family can afford to pay. All else equal, omitting those assets mechanically increases the financial aid available to families that hold them. White families are more likely to own those assets and in larger amounts. We document this issue and explore its relationship with observed differences in college attendance, types of institutions attended, degrees attained, and education debt using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). We show that this treatment of assets provides an implicit subsidy worth thousands of dollars annually to students from families with above‐median incomes. White students receive larger subsidies relative to Black students and Hispanic students with similar family incomes, and this gap in subsidies is associated with disadvantages in educational advancement and student loan levels. It may explain 10 percent to 15 percent of white students’ advantage in these outcomes relative to Black students and Hispanic students.
Income-segregated contexts may limit residents’ exposure to income inequality, suppressing concerns about economic disparity and support for economic integration. In this article, we assess the relationship between residential income segregation and attitudes about the importance of income integration in schools to understand the link between local economic conditions and individuals’ attitudes about social equity. We test this relationship by measuring residential income segregation at two geographic scales—meso-level institutional segregation between school districts and micro-level neighborhood segregation between census tracts. We find a negative relationship between school district income segregation in individuals’ residential counties and beliefs about the importance of income integration in schools, but no relationship between more fine-grained neighborhood income segregation and these same beliefs. The results suggest that the degree to which residents problematize income-segregated school contexts is associated with the relative income homogeneity of the school districts where they live, which represent the salient political boundary for the administration of educational services. These findings contribute to broader knowledge about the varied pathways and spatial scales through which segregated environments may shape beliefs about social and economic inequality.
We use data from the Stanford Education Data Archive to describe district-level trends in average academic achievement between 2009 and 2019. Although on average school districts’ test scores improved very modestly (by about 0.001 standard deviations per year), there is significant variation among districts. Moreover, we find that average test score disparities between nonpoor and poor students and between White and Black students are growing; those between White and Hispanic students are shrinking. We find no evidence of achievement-equity synergies or trade-offs: Improvements in overall achievement are uncorrelated with trends in achievement disparities. Finally, we find that the strongest predictors of achievement disparity trends are the levels and trends in within-district racial and socioeconomic segregation and changes in differential access to certified teachers.
Over the past several decades, housing costs have risen sharply, and as a result, an increasing number of families have become “housing cost burdened,” paying more than one third of their income toward rent and utilities. This integrative literature synthesis considers the known and potential impacts of families’ housing affordability problems on child development and schooling outcomes through a review of 64 studies published between 2000 and 2020. The synthesis proceeds in three sections: the first section examines research on the direct connection between affordability and child outcomes. The second section considers the empirical evidence on four pathways through which affordability problems are theorized to affect child outcomes: the residential mobility pathway (by causing residential mobility, school mobility, eviction, or homelessness), the living environment pathway (by reducing the quality of housing or living conditions), the neighborhood and school opportunity pathway (by restricting access to high-opportunity neighborhoods and schools), and the parental resources pathway (by reducing financial resources that could be invested in children and increasing parental stress). The third section of the synthesis considers affordability’s impact on children through an examination of the research literature on the impact of federal housing assistance. Future directions for policy are considered, including the expansion of housing assistance for families, and additional research is urged on the impacts of housing affordability on children by scholars within the field of education.
Social scientists have found income inequality is associated with an array of health and social problems, however the implications of income inequality for education are the subject of debate. Across 100 different areas (individual counties or collections of small counties) of the United States, we investigated how income inequality was associated with 1) average mathematics and reading achievement and 2) socioeconomic gradients in mathematics and reading achievement. Using data from the Kindergarten to Fifth Grade waves of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2011 (ECLS-K 2011), we found areas of the United States with higher income inequality had lower average achievement in mathematics and a larger socioeconomic achievement gradient in reading. In further analyses, we investigated what characteristics of school and home environments mediated the relationship between income inequality and academic achievement. We found the association between income inequality and academic achievement was partly explained by the clustering of disadvantaged students in high poverty schools/districts and more intensive parenting practices among high SES parents (structured activity participation, educational expectations).
School segregation has been a topic of significant sociological research in the United States. Less attention has been devoted to understanding the relationship between school district inequalities and secession, a political tool that forms new boundaries after a formal withdrawal from an existing school district. This paper analyzes the school district secession attempts that have occurred since the year 2000 using national data and builds upon qualitative research and case studies focused on a single region or metropolitan area. Drawing on social closure theory, I explore the community characteristics associated with secession attempts. To do so, I create a measure of social imbalance that leverages the geographic variation between places attempting a secession and the school districts they are nested within. Results indicate that the percentage of residents with a college degree is among the strongest predictors of secession attempts, highlighting the salience of educational attainment at the population-level for selecting into the use of this political tool. Results also indicate that school districts successfully created through secession cleave onto racial and economic divides for both the residential and student populations, driven by secessions located in the South. School district secession processes elucidate the many pathways by which school segregation is produced and perpetuated, including micro-level school and neighborhood selection decisions, jurisdictional restructuring of district boundaries, and the national and state-level legal landscape.
Empirical data show that the COVID-19 pandemic deepened and exacerbated social inequalities, to the detriment of low-income communities of color. Using the law as a conceptual framework and legal research methodology, this study examines education law against the exacerbated social inequalities low-income students of color faced during the pandemic. Considering the bounds of the law against the exacerbated social inequalities surfaces the limitations of the law in a time of large-scale crisis and thereby exposes issues of educational inequity. In this context, policymakers bear the responsibility to adopt policies that promote educational equity. The study brings educational law and policy issues in the COVID-19 context to the fore of the educational equity discourse within the educational research community and has implications for policy and practice as well. The study is of import as educational researchers continue to examine the impact of COVID-19 across numerous social contexts and disciplines.
As more urban residents find their housing through online search tools, recent research has theorized the potential for online information to transform and equalize the housing search process. Yet, very little is known about what rental housing information is available online. Using a corpus of millions of geocoded Craigslist advertisements for rental housing across the 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the United States merged with census tract-level data from the American Community Survey, we identify and describe the types of information commonly included in listings across different types of neighborhoods. We find that in the online housing market, renters are exposed to fundamentally different types of information depending on the ethnoracial and socioeconomic makeup of the neighborhoods where they are searching.
It is well established that students from different socioeconomic backgrounds attend different colleges, net of their academic preparation. An unintended consequence of these disparities is that in the aggregate, they enhance socioeconomic segregation across institutions of higher education, cultivating separate and distinct social environments that can influence students' outcomes. Using information on the academic careers of a nationally representative sample of U.S. high school students who entered college in the mid-2000s, matched with external information on the social context of each college, this study evaluates the extent of socioeconomic segregation by social context in higher education and its implications for socioeconomic inequality in bachelor's degree attainment. Results confirm that social context is highly consequential for inequality in student outcomes. First, disparities in social context are extensive, even after differences in demographics, skills, attitudes, and college characteristics are accounted for. Second, the social context of campus, as shaped by segregation, is a robust predictor of students' likelihood of obtaining a bachelor's degree. Finally, the degree attainment rates of all students are positively associated with higher concentrations of economic advantages on campus. Combined, these results imply that socioeconomic segregation across colleges exacerbates disparities in degree attainment by placing disadvantaged students in social environments that are least conducive to their academic success.
Schools and residential neighbourhoods constitute key contexts of development beyond the family of origin. Yet, few prior studies address whether the overall impact of these childhood contexts on adult life chances has changed over time. In this article, we investigate changes in socio-economic resemblance between former schoolmates and neighbouring children using Norwegian administrative data covering three decades. We use cross-classified multilevel models to decompose the variance in children’s educational attainment and adult earnings into the contributions found within and between their school and neighbourhood contexts in adolescence. We find that unadjusted school and neighbourhood correlations in educational attainment are relatively modest and declining over time. These trends largely reflect declining socio-economic segregation between schools and neighbourhoods over time. After adjusting for sorting by family background, schools account for 2 per cent or less of the total variation in completed years of education in the more recent cohorts and neighbourhoods even less. For adult earnings, the adjusted school correlations are very low, accounting for around 1 per cent of the total variance, while the contribution of neighbourhoods is close to zero. Our findings suggest that adolescent school and neighbourhood contexts are not major determinants of children’s later-life socio-economic attainments in the Norwegian welfare state setting.
School and neighborhood segregation are intertwined in complex ways. Schools reflect segregated neighborhoods, and school considerations reinforce neighborhood segregation. Over the past 25 years, racial segregation in neighborhoods and schools has slightly declined in terms of sorting, though children remain racially isolated in their neighborhoods and schools. Income segregation between schools, school districts, and neighborhoods has increased among children. Recent educational policy and demographic changes may break the link between neighborhood and school segregation. As population diversity increases, the proliferation of school choice leads schools and neighborhoods to resemble one another less, with schools becoming more segregated than their local neighborhoods. Regardless of the complicated and changing ways neighborhood and school segregation shape and reshape one another, segregation in both contexts remains high in the twenty-first century. Drawing on administrative data, I provide a quantitative portrait of the schools and neighborhoods of children from different racial/ethnic groups in 2015, documenting stark inequalities in these contexts. I conclude with a discussion of why segregation matters, what can be done about it, and why something must be done.
Although it is clear that racial segregation is linked to academic achievement gaps, the mechanisms underlying this link have been debated since James Coleman published his eponymous 1966 report. In this paper, I examine sixteen distinct measures of segregation to determine which is most strongly associated with academic achievement gaps. I find clear evidence that one aspect of segregation in particular—the disparity in average school poverty rates between white and black students' schools—is consistently the single most powerful correlate of achievement gaps, a pattern that holds in both bivariate and multivariate analyses. This implies that high-poverty schools are, on average, much less effective than lower-poverty schools and suggests that strategies that reduce the differential exposure of black, Hispanic, and white students to poor schoolmates may lead to meaningful reductions in academic achievement gaps.
A merican public schools experienced a substantial reduction of black-white segregation after the Supreme Court ordered the immediate desegregation of Mississippi schools in 1969. Past research has shown that progress slowed by the 1990s, with some arguing that segregation actually began to rebound. This study is the first to examine enrollment data for each decade between 1970 and 2010 for a comprehensive set of districts across the country and also the first to include data for 1980 for a national sample of districts. It provides definitive evidence that most desegregation occurred in the 1970s, with little subsequent change. It also addresses two questions about the desegregation process. First, how closely was it tied to court orders for a particular school district or for a neighboring district? Desegregation was greatest in response to a legal mandate, but it also extended to districts that never faced court action. Second, what was the effect of mandates on white flight? White student enrollment declined generally in these decades but more in districts that faced a mandate in the immediate past decade. White flight contributed to a modest increase in segregation between school districts, but desegregation within districts was sufficient to result in a large net decline at a metropolitan level. Public schools in the United States began complying with desegregation orders in large numbers in the late 1960s, about a decade after the Supreme Court ruled that segregated school systems were unconstitutional. Many studies since that time have sought to track segregation, debating how much schools ever desegre-gated, how much difference court orders made to local district policies, and whether (and to what degree and for how long) desegregation stimulated white flight. The research reported here offers systematic evidence on the timing of changes decade by decade from 1970 through 2010, and it uses multilevel time- .
Since the Coleman report, many have questioned whether public school spending affects student outcomes. The school finance
reforms that began in the early 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s caused dramatic changes to the structure of K–12 education
spending in the US. To study the effect of these school-finance-reform-induced changes in public school spending on long-run
adult outcomes, we link school spending and school finance reform data to detailed, nationally-representative data on children
born between 1955 and 1985 and followed through 2011. We use the timing of the passage of court-mandated reforms, and their
associated type of funding formula change, as exogenous shifters of school spending and we compare the adult outcomes of cohorts
that were differentially exposed to school finance reforms, depending on place and year of birth. Event-study and instrumental
variable models reveal that a 10 percent increase in per-pupil spending each year for all twelve years of public school leads
to 0.31 more completed years of education, about 7 percent higher wages, and a 3.2 percentage-point reduction in the annual
incidence of adult poverty; effects are much more pronounced for children from low-income families. Exogenous spending increases
were associated with notable improvements in measured school inputs, including reductions in student-to-teacher ratios, increases
in teacher salaries, and longer school years.
The singular focus of public debate on the “top 1 percent” of households overlooks the component of earnings inequality that
is arguably most consequential for the “other 99 percent” of citizens: the dramatic growth in the wage premium associated
with higher education and cognitive ability. This Review documents the central role of both the supply and demand for skills
in shaping inequality, discusses why skill demands have persistently risen in industrialized countries, and considers the
economic value of inequality alongside its potential social costs. I conclude by highlighting the constructive role for public
policy in fostering skills formation and preserving economic mobility.
This paper analyzes a marked change in the evolution of the U.S. wage structure over the past fifteen years: divergent trends in upper-tail (90/50) and lower-tail (50/10) wage inequality. We document that wage inequality in the top half of distribution has displayed an unchecked and rather smooth secular rise for the last 25 years (since 1980). Wage inequality in the bottom half of the distribution also grew rapidly from 1979 to 1987, but it has ceased growing (and for some measures actually narrowed) since the late 1980s. Furthermore we find that occupational employment growth shifted from monotonically increasing in wages (education) in the 1980s to a pattern of more rapid growth in jobs at the top and bottom relative to the middles of the wage (education) distribution in the 1990s. We characterize these patterns as the %u201Cpolarization%u201D of the U.S. labor market, with employment polarizing into high-wage and low-wage jobs at the expense of middle-wage work. We show how a model of computerization in which computers most strongly complement the non-routine (abstract) cognitive tasks of high-wage jobs, directly substitute for the routine tasks found in many traditional middle-wage jobs, and may have little direct impact on non-routine manual tasks in relatively low-wage jobs can help explain the observed polarization of the U.S. labor market.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.
The indicators of parental involvement in children's education vary considerably across studies, most of which treat parental involvement as a unidimensional construct. This study identified four dimensions of parental involvement and assessed the relationship of each dimension with parental background and academic achievement for a large representative sample of U.S. middle school students. The findings provide little support for the conjecture that parents with low socioeco- nomic status are less involved in their children's schooling than are parents with higher socioeconomic status. Furthermore, although schools varied somewhat in parental involvement associated with volunteering and attendance at meetings of parent-teache r organizations, they did not va'y substantially in levels of involvement associated with home supervision, discussion of school-related activities, or parent-teache r communication. Yet the discussion of school-related activities at home had the strongest relationship with academic achievement. Parents' participation at school had a moderate effect on reading achievement, but a negligible effect on mathematics achievement.
This study analyzed segregation among public elementary school children using data collected by the National Center for Educational Statistics through the 1999-00 school year. It examined the impact of such factors as families opting out of the public school system or taking school attendance lines into account when deciding where to live, noting whether they combined to affect disparities in the racial and ethnic composition of schools. Overall, results indicated that separate meant unequal in U.S. public schools. During the study period, the average poor student attended a school that was 63 percent poor, while the average nonpoor student attended a school that was only 27.5 percent poor. White students were in schools that were 30 percent poor, black students were in schools that were 65 percent poor, Hispanic students were in schools that were 66 percent poor, and Asian students were in schools that were 42 percent poor. These disparities varied by region. This suggests that racial segregation works to the benefit of white students, placing them in very different schools from minority students. (Contains 10 tables.) (SM)
Several recent studies have concluded that residential segregation by income in the United States has increased in the decades since 1970, including a significant increase after 2000. Income segregation measures, however, are biased upward when based on sample data. This is a potential concern because the sampling rate of the American Community Survey (ACS)—from which post-2000 income segregation estimates are constructed—was lower than that of the earlier decennial censuses. Thus, the apparent increase in income segregation post-2000 may simply reflect larger upward bias in the estimates from the ACS, and the estimated trend may therefore be inaccurate. In this study, we first derive formulas describing the approximate sampling bias in two measures of segregation. Next, using Monte Carlo simulations, we show that the bias-corrected estimators eliminate virtually all of the bias in segregation estimates in most cases of practical interest, although the correction fails to eliminate bias in some cases when the population is unevenly distributed among geographic units and the average within-unit samples are very small. We then use the bias-corrected estimators to produce unbiased estimates of the trends in income segregation over the last four decades in large U.S. metropolitan areas. Using these corrected estimates, we replicate the central analyses in four prior studies on income segregation. We find that the primary conclusions from these studies remain unchanged, although the true increase in income segregation among families after 2000 was only half as large as that reported in earlier work. Despite this revision, our replications confirm that income segregation has increased sharply in recent decades among families with children and that income inequality is a strong and consistent predictor of income segregation.
Students in the United States whose household income is less than 130% of the poverty line qualify for free lunch, and students whose household income is between 130% and 185% of the poverty line qualify for reduced-price lunch. Education researchers and policymakers often use free and reduced-price lunch (FRPL) status to measure socioeconomic disadvantage. But how valid is this measure? Linking IRS income tax data to school administrative records for all eighth graders in one California public school district and Oregon public schools, we examine how well FRPL enrollment captures student disadvantage. We find that FRPL categories capture relatively little variation in household income. However, FRPL captures elements of educational disadvantage that IRS-reported household income data do not.
We study the impact of post- 1990 school finance reforms, during the so- called "adequacy" era, on absolute and relative spending and achievement in low- income school districts. Using an event study research design that exploits the apparent randomness of reform timing, we show that reforms lead to sharp, immediate, and sustained increases in spending in low- income school districts. Using representative samples from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, we find that reforms cause increases in the achievement of students in these districts, phasing in gradually over the years following the reform. The implied effect of school resources on educational achievement is large.
Large achievement gaps exist between high- and low-income students and between black and white students. This article explores one explanation for such gaps: income segregation between school districts, which creates inequality in the economic and social resources available in advantaged and disadvantaged students’ school contexts. Drawing on national data, I find that the income achievement gap is larger in highly segregated metropolitan areas. This is due mainly to high-income students performing better, rather than low-income children performing worse, in more-segregated places. Income segregation between districts also contributes to the racial achievement gap, largely because white students perform better in more economically segregated places. Descriptive portraits of the school districts of high- and low-income students show that income segregation creates affluent districts for high-income students while changing the contexts of low-income students negligibly. Considering income and race jointly, I find that only high-income white families live in the affluent districts created by income segregation; black families with identically high incomes live in districts more similar to those of low-income white families. My results demonstrate that the spatial inequalities created by income segregation between school districts contribute to achievement gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students, with implications for future research and policy.
We examine the impact of the Great Recession on public education finance and employment. Five major themes emerge from our work. First, nearly 300,000 school employees lost their jobs. Second, schools that were heavily dependent financially on state governments were particularly vulnerable to the recession. Third, local revenues from the property tax actually increased during the recession, primarily because millage rates rose in response to declining property values. Fourth, inequality in school spending rose sharply during the Great Recession. We argue, however, that we need to be very cautious about this result. School spending inequality has risen steadily since 2000; the trend in inequality we see in the 2008–13 period is very similar to the trend we see in the 2000–08 period. Fifth, the federal government’s efforts to shield education from some of the worst effects of the recession achieved their major goal.
Although trends in the racial segregation of schools are well documented, less is known about trends in income segregation. We use multiple data sources to document trends in income segregation between schools and school districts. Between-district income segregation of families with children enrolled in public school increased by over 15% from 1990 to 2010. Within large districts, between-school segregation of students who are eligible and ineligible for free lunch increased by over 40% from 1991 to 2012. Consistent with research on neighborhood segregation, we find that rising income inequality contributed to the rise in income segregation between schools and districts during this period. The rise in income segregation between both schools and districts may have implications for inequality in students’ access to resources that bear on academic achievement.
Past research shows that income segregation between neighborhoods increased over the past several decades. In this article, I reexamine income segregation from 1990 to 2010 in the 100 largest metropolitan areas, and I find that income segregation increased only among families with children. Among childless households—two-thirds of the population—income segregation changed little and is half as large as among households with children. I examine two factors that may account for these differences by household composition. First, I find that increasing income inequality, identified by past research as a driver of income segregation, was a much more powerful predictor of income segregation among families with children, among whom income inequality has risen more. Second, I find that local school options, delineated by school district boundaries, contribute to higher segregation among households with children compared to households without. Rising income inequality provided high-income households more resources, and parents used these resources to purchase housing in particular neighborhoods, with residential decisions structured, in part, by school district boundaries. Overall, results indicate that children face greater and increasing stratification in neighborhood contexts than do all residents, and this has implications for growing inequalities in their future outcomes.
This article examines the effects of residential segregation on the basis of poverty status and race for high school and college completion. Segregation effects are estimated by contrasting educational outcomes among persons raised in metropolitan areas with varying levels of segregation. This metropolitan-level approach provides two advantages in evaluating segregation effects over neighborhood effects studies: it incorporates effects of residential segregation outside of the affected individuals' neighborhoods of residence and it allows evaluation of gains and losses across groups from segregation. Data are drawn from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the decennial censuses. Poor-nonpoor segregation is associated with lower rates of high school graduation among adolescents from poor backgrounds, but has no effect on rates of graduation for students from nonpoor backgrounds. Black-white segregation is associated with lower rates of high school graduation and college graduation for black students, but has no effect on graduation rates for white students. Use of proximity-adjusted segregation measures or instrumental variable estimation gives similar results. The results suggest that residential segregation harms the educational attainment of disadvantaged groups without increasing the educational attainment of advantaged groups. © 2014 by Society for the Study of Social Problems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Class does make a difference in the lives and futures of American children. Drawing on in-depth observations of black and white middle-class, working-class, and poor families, Unequal Childhoods explores this fact, offering a picture of childhood today. Here are the frenetic families managing their children's hectic schedules of "leisure" activities; and here are families with plenty of time but little economic security. Lareau shows how middle-class parents, whether black or white, engage in a process of "concerted cultivation" designed to draw out children's talents and skills, while working-class and poor families rely on "the accomplishment of natural growth," in which a child's development unfolds spontaneously—as long as basic comfort, food, and shelter are provided. Each of these approaches to childrearing brings its own benefits and its own drawbacks. In identifying and analyzing differences between the two, Lareau demonstrates the power, and limits, of social class in shaping the lives of America's children. The first edition of Unequal Childhoods was an instant classic, portraying in riveting detail the unexpected ways in which social class influences parenting in white and African American families. A decade later, Annette Lareau has revisited the same families and interviewed the original subjects to examine the impact of social class in the transition to adulthood.
Residential segregation, by definition, leads to racial and socioeconomic disparities in neighborhood conditions. These disparities may in turn produce inequality in social and economic opportunities and outcomes. Because racial and socioeconomic segregation are not independent of each other, however, any analysis of their causes, patterns, and effects must rest on an understanding of the joint distribution of race/ethnicity and income among neighborhoods. In this article, we use a new technique to describe the average racial composition and income distributions in the neighborhoods of households with different income levels and race/ethnicity. Using data from the decennial censuses and the American Community Survey, we investigate how patterns of neighborhood context in the United States over the past two decades vary by household race/ethnicity, income, and metropolitan area. We find large and persistent racial differences in neighborhood context, even among households with the same annual income.
Researchers focusing on parent involvement continue to concentrate their efforts on the relationship between involvement and student performance in isolation of the school context in which involvement occurs. This research outlines an ecology of involvement and how this social context affects parent involvement and student performance. Relying on Bronfrenbrenner’s (1979) theory of human ecology, I elaborate a theoretical model for how the social context of the school affects student performance and the parent involvement–student performance intersection. Analysis using the National Longitudinal Study (1988) supports the thesis that student performance and the relationship between parent involvement and student performance are contingent on the ecological context in which they occur. These findings highlight the need to extend investigations of parent–child interactions to include aspects of the various ecological contexts. Furthermore, the findings highlight the need for educators to modify their efforts to improve parent involvement contingent on the various ecological characteristics of the school.
Since the SupremeCourt's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, researchers and policy makers have paid close attention to trends in school segregation. Here we review the evidence regarding trends and consequences of both racial and economic school segregation since Brown. The evidence suggests that the most significant declines in black-white school segregation occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There is disagreement about the direction of more recent trends in racial segregation, largely driven by how one defines and measures segregation. Depending on the definition used, segregation has either increased substantially or changed little, although there are important differences in the trends across regions, racial groups, and institutional levels. Limited evidence on school economic segregation makes documenting trends difficult, but students appear to be more segregated by income across schools and districts today than in 1990. We also discuss the role of desegregation litigation, demographic changes, and residential segregation in shaping trends in both racial and economic segregation. We develop a general conceptual model of how and why school segregation might affect students and review the relatively thin body of empirical evidence that explicitly assesses the consequences of school segregation. We conclude with a discussion of aspects of school segregation on which further research is needed.
It is widely believed that impoverished contexts harm children. Disentangling the effects of family background from the effects of other social contexts, however, is complex, making causal claims difficult to verify. This study examines the effect of exposure to classroom poverty on student test achievement using data on a cohort of children followed from third through eighth grade. Cross-sectional methods reveal a substantial negative association between exposure to high-poverty classrooms and test scores; this association grows with grade level, becoming especially large for middle school students. Growth models, however, produce much smaller effects of classroom poverty exposure on academic achievement. Even smaller effects emerge from student fixed effects models that control for time-invariant unobservables and from marginal structural models that adjust for observable time-dependent confounding. These findings suggest that causal claims about the effects of classroom poverty exposure on achievement may be unwarranted.
We report results from a large-scale survey of the effects of unemployment on emotional functioning. The study design explicitly considers the possibility that prior emotional functioning may influence the risk of unemployment and chances for reemployment. We document substantial effects of unemployment on distress as well as positive emotional effects of reemployment. Contrary to initial expectations, the probability of reemployment is unrelated to baseline emotional functioning. The elimination of elevated distress after reemployment suggests that the worst psychological effects of job loss can be minimized if opportunities exist for reemployment.
Considerable attention has been devoted to the resegregation of public schools over the 1990s. No research to date, however, has examined change in school segregation since 2000. Using the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD), we examine longitudinal trends in racial/ethnic segregation in 350 U. S. metropolitan areas from 1993 to 2009. We find that worsening segregation over the 1990s has given way to a period of modest integration among all racial/ethnic groups since 1998. However, decreases in segregation were smaller in the formerly de jure segregated South and in metropolitan areas with large increases in racial/ethnic diversity. In addition, since 1998, the relative importance of segregation among non-Whites has increased, while the proportion of segregation that lies across district boundaries has stabilized.
This study revisits the Wisconsin model of status attainment from a life course developmental perspective. Fixed-effects regression
analyses lend strong support to the Wisconsin framework's core proposition that academic performance and significant others'
influence shape educational expectations. However, investigating the process of expectation formation back to the elementary
grades yields insights not evident when analyses are limited to the high school years: (1. many youth consistently expect
to attend college from as early as fourth grade; (2. the expectations of middle- and low-SES youth are less stable, and across
years the preponderance of their exposure to socialization influences mitigates against sustained college ambitions; (3. long-term
stable expectations are more efficacious in forecasting college enrollment than are changing, volatile expectations. As anticipated
in the Wisconsin framework, family- and school-based socialization processes indeed contribute to social reproduction through
children's educational expectations, but the process starts much earlier and includes dynamics outside the scope of the original
status attainment studies.
Fragmentation, or the proliferation of independent jurisdictions, is a key feature of the political structure in many metropolitan areas in the United States. This article engages sorting theories to investigate racial segregation as one potential negative consequence of school district fragmentation in metropolitan areas. The main results suggest that fragmentation does increase multiracial segregation between districts. Using a decomposable segregation measure, the author also finds that fragmentation has a negative impact on segregation within districts and no significant effect on tract-level segregation. Additionally, the results suggest that the causes of segregation may differ for various race/ethnic groups. I argue here that segregation between political units may in fact be more appropriate than segregation between smaller units, such as census tracts, if one believes that the negative consequences of segregation stem from access to and social interactions within public institutions.
McLanahan, Sara, and Sandefur, Gary. (1994). Growing Up With a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 196 pp. Hardcover ISBN 0-674-36407-4, price $19.95. Integrating their insights from more than a decade of research on single-parent families, McLanahan and Sandefur rekindle the debate concerning the consequences for children growing up in households where only one biological parent is present. Their news is not good. Based on extensive analyses of four national data sets, the authors conclude that the disadvantages for children living with single parents are substantial, they occur across several important life domains, and they persist long into adulthood. The authors fmd that regardless of parents' race or educational background, children spending some part of their childhood in a single-parent household earn lower grades in school and are less likely to graduate from high school, less likely to attend or graduate from college, and more likely to be unemployed during late adolescence and early adulthood. Young women from single-parent households are more likely to bear children outside of marriage. This research is made more significant by the fact that most studies have examined children's short-term adjustment to divorce and other single-parent arrangements, and very few have examined long-term effects. Attempting to establish linkages between childhood family structure and later success, the authors systematically explore the potential mediating influence of parenting practices, socioeconomic differences, and community involvement across family types. They document that, according to high school sophomores, divorced parents provide less supervision and less help with homework than married parents and that children from single-parent households are more likely than other children to be poor, to live in poor neighborhoods, to attend poorly funded schools with high dropout rates, and to have peers who do not value education. Importantly, when predivorce and postdivorce income are controlled in analyses of high school dropout risk and other outcomes, the differences between adolescents who experience parental divorce and those who do not diminish to 3 to 4 percentage points. Readers should be aware that the authors value the "standard package"the heterosexual, conjugal, nuclear, domestic unit headed by a male breadwinner and female caretaker. Most of these families are assumed to be happy and functional and when adverse circumstances arise, they should stay together because "the child would probably be better off" (p. 31). The authors argue that in single-mother families, "parental affection and warmth is . …
How consequential is family socioeconomic status for maintaining plans to get a bachelor's degree during the transition to adulthood? This article examines persistence and change in educational expectations, focusing on the extent to which family socioeconomic status shapes overtime trajectories of bachelor's degree expectations, how the influence involves the timing of family formation and full-time work vs. college attendance, and how persistence in expectations is consequential for getting a 4-year degree. The findings, based on the high school senior classes of 1987-1990, demonstrate that adolescents from higher socioeconomic status families are much more likely to hold onto their expectations to earn 4-year degrees, both in the early years after high school and, for those who do not earn degrees within that period, on through their 20s. These more persistent expectations in young adulthood, more so than adolescent expectations, help explain the greater success of young people from higher socioeconomic status backgrounds in earning a 4-year degree. Persistence of expectations to earn a bachelor's degree in the years after high school is shaped by stratified pathways of school, work, and family roles in the transition to adulthood.