School Segregation and Early Learning of Latinx Students

• In Event: “Nice White Schools”: How Do We Understand the Possible Benefits of Integration for Latinx Children?

Abstract

Introduction
Despite some narrowing of Latinx-White achievement gaps, learning disparities are evident before children enter kindergarten and persist throughout elementary school (Authors; Guerrero et al. 2013; Reardon and Portilla 2016). The racial/ethnic segregation of Latinx students in schools may explain this limited progress in narrowing inequities in learning. Many Latinx students are isolated from White or middle-class peers, attending schools with limited resources and poorly equipped to support their specific academic, pedagogical, and social-emotional needs (Gándara and Contreras 2009; Suárez-Orozco, Suárez-Orozco, and Todorova 2008). These factors, in turn, suppress students’ learning outcomes (Adair, 2016; López, McEneaney, and Nieswandt 2015).

While growing body of research documented Latinx segregation trends at the neighborhood level and more recently across schools (Authors; Orfield, Frankenberg and Lee 2003), little research has illuminated how school segregation in the early grades shape Latinx students’ educational growth (for exceptions, Benner and Crosnoe 2011, Kainz and Pan 2014; Lee and Klugman 2013). Nor do we know how the effects of school segregation on students’ learning trajectories vary for Latinx subgroups, like parents’ nativity and educational attainment.

Research Questions
This study focuses on the following questions:
RQ 1. What levels of school composition (% White, middle-class, and Latinx students) in kindergarten do Latinx students experience? How do composition levels vary by parental nativity and educational attainment?
RQ 2. Do school composition levels (% White or %middle-class students) predict growth in mathematical learning through fourth grade for Latinx students?
RQ 3. Does the proportion of Latinx students enrolled at the school moderate the effects of school composition (% White or %middle-class students) on Latinx growth?
RQ 4. To what extent do the effects of school composition (% White or %middle-class students) on growth vary by parental nativity and educational attainment?

Data and Methods
We used the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study 2010-2011 data, which includes a nationally representative sample of kindergarteners, who have now been followed through fourth grade. After multiple imputation of the data, the analytical sample includes 4,330 Latinx children from 770 schools.

We use multilevel modeling within a three-level growth-curve framework to estimate the associations between Latinx students’ growth trajectories in mathematics and school composition measures. We are able to predict both initial scores in kindergarten and growth across the 5-year span from kindergarten entry through fourth grade.

Results
We find that Latinx children display higher rates of growth in mathematics learning when attending schools with higher shares of White peers. In addition, a more equal balance between White and Latinx enrollment further contributes to mathematics learning, after taking into account the main effect from the significant presence of White peers. The growth rates enjoyed by Latinx students increased as both the percent of White and Latinx children increased. No parallel benefits were observed for attending schools with proportionally more middle-class peers.

Both, Latinx students of native and foreign-born parents, academically benefited from balanced integration. But these learning benefits were not consistently enjoyed across Latinx students with parents of varying levels of education.

Authors

• Yoonjeon Kim, University of California - Berkeley
  Presenting Author

• Claudia Galindo, University of Maryland, College Park
  Non-Presenting Author