Majority African American Schools and the Family Structures of Schools: School Racial Composition and Academic Achievement among Black and White Students

Abstract

This research extends and revises research on the association between the racial composition of schools and academic achievement. Some earlier studies have looked at how the concentration of minority students was related to test performance of both Black and White students, and have found a negative correlation for both groups that could not be attributed to socioeconomic factors. Using hierarchical linear modeling and including individual-level and school-level family structure variables to re-analyze data used in some of the previous studies, the present study finds that the correlation between racial composition and achievement test scores can be explained by the fact that schools with large percentages of minority students contain large percentages of students from single-parent families. This is true for both Black students and White students, examined separately.