Influence of School Racial Composition on Academic Achievement in Math

• In Event: Roundtable Session 23
  In Roundtable Session: Inequality and the Racialization of Education

Abstract

There are varying assumptions, often guided by racial stereotypes or incomplete data, about African Americans’ intellectual capacity to achieve academically. The main purpose of this paper is to address the far to common stereotypes that African American children are intellectual unable to academically achieve or compete with their peers from other racial/ethnic groups. We examined Early Childhood Longitudinal Study data using a three-stage stratified sampling method utilizing latent growth curve modeling. When comparing performance among schools that had over 25% of Black student population, no student groups were left behind any other student groups. Black, Latino, Asian, other minorities and White were performing equally well.

Authors

• William A. Smith, University of Utah

• Man Hung, University of Utah

• Jeremy D. Franklin, University of Utah