Harmful or Helpful? School Composition as an Explanation for Dropout Among Mexican Origin Youth

• In Event: 038 - Section on Sociology of Population Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Sociology of Population Roundtables (one-hour). Table 01.Health and Education among Hispanics

Abstract

The segmented assimilation and "double disadvantage" theories propose that high-minority, high-poverty schooling contexts may exacerbate educational inequalities between Mexican origin youth and their peers. Additionally, these frameworks posit that Mexican origin youth may have greater susceptibility to school compositional influences on their educational outcomes relative to members of other racial/ethnic groups. However, a number of studies show that subgroups of Latino/a and Mexican origin youth exhibit worse educational and psychosocial outcomes as they gain exposure to non-minority and affluent youth in schools, potentially due to “frog pond” or relative deprivation effects. I conduct a multilevel statistical analysis of data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 to evaluate the associations between school racial/ethnic and socioeconomic composition and the risk of school dropout among Mexican origin youth. I find a negative bivariate association between the percentage of non-minority students in the school and dropout, and between average school socioeconomic status levels and dropout, among Mexican origin youth. These associations, however, are explained by differential sorting among Mexican origin youth across schools by socioeconomic status and achievement. I do not find that Mexican origin youth are particularly vulnerable to school compositional influences on their risk of dropout relative to other groups.

Author

• Elizabeth Ackert, University of Washington