Educational Achievement Gap: How Racial/Ethnic Neighborhood Segregation Matters!

• In Event: 4412 - Section on Latino/a Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 01. Latina/o/xs and Place through the Lifespan

Abstract

Race/ethnic and income segregation has shown to explain educational inequalities among
both low-income and Latino and Black students’ today (Quillian 2014; Goldsmith 2009). That is,
at the spatial-level, segregation by race/ethnicity and income can determine children’s access to a
quality education. Recent literature examining the second-generation phenomena, on other hand,
has found no effect for race/ethnic segregation among children of immigrants and has, in part,
attributed educational differences to income segregation and generational status (Portes and Hao
2004; Pong and Hao 2007). Using neighborhood-level data, this study examined the effects of
race/ethnic and income neighborhood segregation on educational achievement tests of children
by generational status, and found significant differences in scores explained by student’s
racial/ethnic background, parental education, and race/ethnic neighborhood segregation. Latino
and Black segregated neighborhoods were associated with the lowest achievement test scores
after controlling for individual demographic characteristics and income segregation. Lastly, there
was no effect regarding generational status. Meaning that, between 3rd generation and onward
children and children of immigrants, racial/ethnic background, parental education, and
race/ethnic neighborhood segregation were the primary factors in explaining differences in
achievement test scores.

Author

• Paul Martinez, University of California-Los Angeles