Beyond Academic Outcomes: Relationships between Dimensions of Tracking and Socio-emotional Learning and Social Climate Outcomes

• In Event: 21020 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5: Exceptionality in Education

Abstract

Academic tracking remains a defining feature of American schooling, yet its multidimensional nature and varied effects on student SEL and school climate outcomes remain underexplored. Using administrative and survey data from four large California school districts in the wake of Common Core policy implementation (2015-2019), we examine five key dimensions of tracking and their associations with academic achievement, academic socioemotional learning (SEL), and school climate outcomes. Consistent with prior research, tracking (skills homogeneity in particular) reinforces academic inequality, amplifying achievement gaps between higher- and lower-performing students. We also find little evidence that tracking affects academic SEL outcomes, with only modest positive effects of several math tracking dimensions on growth mindset and self management. More surprisingly, we find that certain tracking structures — particularly math and ELA course exclusiveness — are positively associated with school climate perceptions like school belonging, perceptions of clear rules, and perceptions of fairness. Our findings complicate assumptions about tracking’s broad consequences, highlighting the need for a more nuanced understanding of its effects across its various dimensions, subject domains, and non-academic student outcomes.

Authors

• Amy Gong Liu, University of California, Irvine

• Paul Hanselman, University of California-Irvine