Power of Mixed Methods: School Ethnographies, Academic Transcripts, Post–High School Interviews

• In Event: Successful Mixed-Methods and/or Multidisciplinary Team Approaches to the Study of Racial Justice/Injustice in Education

Abstract

In a three-year 8-high school ethnographic study of STEM education reform in two cities, we showed how mechanisms of curricular erosion, diversion, and hollowing out undermined initial intent to increase STEM opportunities for historically minoritized low-income students. We also showed that the effects of these mechanisms were more virulent in Buffalo than Denver—both classified by NCES as large city districts, with equivalent proportions of low-income minoritized students. The figured worlds of “being good” in school math/science were similarly hollowed out in Denver and Buffalo, but in different ways.
After completing ethnographies, accompanied by in-depth interviews with focal students, administrators, teachers, counselors, we embarked upon “7 year out” follow-up interviews with the same students, with an eye towards tracking and theorizing educational and occupational outcomes, while linking such outcomes to school-based data. We followed 96 focal students closely in the full ethnographies (Grades 9-12) and 63 of the original 96 (66 percent) over 9 (2010-2019) years, providing a rare ability to document and explain high school -to -college -to work trajectories. Connecting actual high school STEM opportunities directly with specific diverse student outcomes over time is a strength of our study. Focal students were chosen at the end of Grade 9, as follows: 1) top 20 percent of their non-selective high school class on standardized achievement scores in math and science; 2) interest in pursuing one or more STEM fields in college.
Affordances of Classroom Observations; School Based Interviews; Student Academic Transcripts; Longitudinal Interviews
3-year Participant Observation in high school classrooms/schools coupled with on-site follow-up interviews with math/science teachers revealed curricular erosion of initially put in place high level math/science AP/IB classes as well as extracurricular STEM activities. Interviews with teachers and students clarified erosion of high-level programs and courses designed to expand STEM opportunities. Detailed academic transcript analyses over 4 years of high school clarified the collapse of high-level STEM courses for top STEM-intended students; this was far more the case for Denver than Buffalo. In-depth post high school longitudinal interviews with focal students included extensive information: application to college, or not; if and where students attended college; declaration of STEM major; completion of college (2 or 4 years); actual STEM major; further STEM education; and jobs/occupations. Post high school interviews and official transcripts enabled discernment of the extent to which students remained “on track” in relation to original goals and where forced “off track” due to lack of challenging STEM courses (particularly math classes that scaffold Calculus and Physics). Considering varying data sources/ methods, we were able to explain, over time, markedly different educational/occupational outcomes among initially matched students in two cities, enabling discussions of cumulative advantage (DiPrete and Eirich; 2006). We were further able to explain the relative success of Denver students in high school, as accompanied by widely different post-high school educational/occupational outcomes—something that we could not have done if we had not employed our iteratively developed mixed methods design.

Author

• Lois Weis, University at Buffalo - SUNY