Are Educational Inequalities Uniform? Comparing Variation in Gender, Race, and Class Disparities Across U.S. High Schools

• In Event: 70.065 - Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: 70.065-4 - Inequality: School Factors

Abstract

This paper demonstrates that, while average achievement and attainment differences by gender, race, and SES are well known, the magnitude of these differences varies across schools. Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, I estimate multilevel random intercept, random slope models that allow the effects of particular demographic characteristics (i.e., gender, race, and SES) to vary across schools. These models reveal substantial variation across high schools in the extent of within-school gender, race, and SES inequalities in math achievement, high school graduation, and college enrollment. By empirically demonstrating differences in the degree of within-school inequality in these outcomes across schools, this paper points to future work examining school characteristics that are related to the extent of within-school inequalities.

Author

• Hannah K. Miller, University of Wisconsin - Madison