Schools, Maintained Inequalities, and Algebra for All

• In Event: Pathways Through Math Across Levels of Schooling

Abstract

Stratification research demonstrates that educational inequalities often persist in the face of educational expansion, but it reveals relatively little about how and where such equalities are maintained. To address these questions, this paper focuses on the schools and local institutions in which key resources, such as course placement, are allotted. We develop an organizational perspective on maintained inequality, and apply this framework to empirical case of California’s recent “Algebra for All” initiative, which saw dramatic increases in middle school algebra enrollments but only slight decreases in economic course-taking gaps. We find that overall trends masked substantial heterogeneity across schools, which we trace to differences in changes in maximal possible inequality (given spaces and students) and the realized level of inequality.

Authors

• Paul Hanselman, University of California - Irvine

• Thurston Domina, University of California - Irvine

• NaYoung Hwang, University of California - Irvine