Returns to Testing: Racial/Ethnic Differences in Math Course Sequence Attainment

• In Event: 3153 - Tracking, Curricular Structure, and Inequality

Abstract

Latino/as represent the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population, but their college-going rates are below the national average. These disparities between representation the general population and in the college population are rooted in the highly stratified and cumulative nature of the public education system, which increasingly marginalizes Latinos/a students as they move through the K-12 years through the interplay of institutional forces and disadvantages related to socioeconomic status, ethnicity, immigration, and language. This study draws on life course theory to investigate Latino/a high school students’ math coursework through high school and how it is related to their math test scores at the start of high school. Multilevel ordinal logistic regressions of nationally representative data (n = 11620) from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 tested the possibility that the “returns” to initial tested ability—in terms of eventually reaching higher levels of the math curriculum—would be lower for Latino/as than for White and Black students. This hypothesis was not consistently supported, and the patterns differed by gender. For boys, the associations between initial math test scores and later math coursework was similar across the three racial/ethnic groups. For girls, however, Latina and Black girls had significantly lower likelihood of reaching the highest levels of math than White girls with the same initial test scores. The findings for Latino/as did not appear to be driven by variations in national origin or immigration status. This study contributes to an ongoing discussion on racial/ethnic access to college and highlights one specific point in the educational life course where Latina girls may be disadvantaged relative to their White peers.

Authors

• Matthew James Snidal, Univeristy of Texas at Austin

• Robert Crosnoe, University of Texas-Austin

• Aprile Benner, University of Texas at Austin

• Thurston A. Domina, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

• Paul Hanselman, University of California-Irvine

• Yasmiyn Irizarry, University of Texas at Austin