How Do School Composition and School Segregation Shape Student Achievement? Disentangling Complexities

• In Event: 060 - Regular Session. School Choice and Educational Inequality

Abstract

School segregation has long been studied as an explanation for the black-white achievement gap. However, studies often conflate two related but distinct explanations for student achievement: school composition (the racial/ethnic makeup of a student’s school) and school segregation (how students are sorted between schools according to race). While the two are related, the mechanisms linking them to student outcomes differ. School composition suggests that intergroup contact and peer influence shape achievement, while school segregation focuses on resource inequalities. To explore these issues, I use restricted-use data from the Early Longitudinal Childhood Study Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 to model how school composition and school segregation shape 3rd grade reading and math scores. I measure segregation in terms of how school composition deviates from district composition, and interaction terms between school and district composition test whether attending a school with a particular racial composition confers different (dis)advantages depending on district composition. Preliminary findings suggest that, for some racial/ethnic groups, school composition is associated with test scores regardless of the larger context, while for others, school composition only matters in comparison to the larger district context. Further, the impact of school composition often depends on district composition. For example, attending a 90% white school is more advantageous in a 10% white than a 90% white district, indicating a segregation story—resources may be disproportionately high in the white school in a minority district. Past research misses the complex ways that school composition and segregation shape student achievement.

Author

• Ann Owens, University of Southern California