Advanced Placement Course Enrollment and School-Level Characteristics

Abstract

The current study examined access to Advanced Placement (AP) courses as a function of these school characteristics (e.g., percentage of ethnic minority and lower socioeconomic status) and then examined AP course enrollment as a function of both access to AP courses and these school characteristics. Using structural equation modeling techniques, results indicated that school characteristics, such as the percentage of students who have minority and/or lower socioeconomic status backgrounds, would appear to be more related to the availability of AP curricula rather than to the number of students who enroll in these courses at a school.