Community Characteristics Help Explain Income Gaps in Achievement

• In Event: 1-010 - Neighborhood Geocoding

Abstract

Economic disadvantage undermines children’s academic achievement. Children from poor families begin school almost a full academic year behind their high-income peers on core academic skills. These gaps persist as children progress through school and serve as essential markers for continued disparities in educational achievement and attainment, as well as adult employment, earnings, and health (Duncan et al., 2008; 2014; Jantti, 2009). Thus, it is crucial to delineate the forces that give rise to achievement gaps in early childhood and that contribute to their maintenance as children progress through school. This study substantially expands extant knowledge by delineating the fundamental family and neighborhood processes through which family income relates to academic skills growth. To do this, it uses innovative mapping methodologies and draws the most recent administrative data from a plethora of sources (e.g. American Community Survey, Economic Census, FBI, EPA) to assess key community-level resources and stressors that are pathways through which income relates family process and children’s achievement.

This study uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (ECLS-K: 2011) matched with a broad range of administrative data. The ECLS-K: 2011 followed a cohort of over 18,000 children entering kindergarten in 2010. Direct assessments were conducted of children’s reading, math, and science achievement, and parents reported family income. Measures of family resources (cognitive stimulation; parental warmth) and family stressors (parental distress; harsh parenting) were derived from parent reports. Data drawn from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, Economic Census, FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Database, EPA, and other sources were utilized to develop measures of community resources (e.g. cultural, health, and other resources; human capital, parks) and community stressors (e.g. pollution; violent crime; neighborhood disadvantage). These measures were linked to children and families in the ECLS-K: 2011 sample using geocodes.

Structural equation models were estimated to test whether community characteristics mediate income disparities in achievement either directly or through family processes. Initial results indicate that family income’s associations with achievement were explained in part by community context. Income was linked to increased community resources and decreased neighborhood concentrated disadvantage, which were directly related to achievement as well as indirectly related to achievement via associations with cognitive stimulation and harsh parenting. Additional analyses will follow children through 5th grade to replicate these patterns longitudinally. Results will inform housing and family policy and provide knowledge useful in redressing economic disparities in achievement.

Authors

• Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Rebekah Levine Coley, Boston College

• Portia Miller, University of Pittsburgh

• Bryn Spielvogel, Boston College