Disparities In Educational Attainment Research Articles

Structural Racism in Schools: A View through the Lens of the National School Social Work Practice Model

Abstract Structural racism—implicitly discriminatory practices and policies that have negative consequences for individuals and groups of color—is a powerful force in contemporary American society, including in our public education system. This article explores the potential for school social workers (SSWers) to address structural racism through the use of the national school social work (SSW) practice model as a tool to guide systemic, ecologically oriented intervention within schools and educational policy spaces. In this article, the authors review data on racial disparities in educational attainment, placement, opportunity, and discipline practices that have led to increased attention to structural racism in schools. They then discuss and describe the national SSW practice model and its suitability for the structural interventions in response to structural racism in schools. Finally, they provide recommendations for how SSWers can respond effectively to this pressing social problem. These recommendations include a list of resources for addressing structural racism.

Rural?urban divide in human capital in Poland after 1988

Research background: The subject of the study is the disproportionate development of rural and urban areas in terms of human capital in the context of the convergence process.
 Purpose of the article: The main goal of the study is to assess the rural?urban disparities on the educational attainment of the population (adopted as a human capital proxy), based on the example of Poland.
 Methods: The Bray-Curtis measure of structures diversity, the Kruskal-Wallis test and regression analysis were applied to investigate the scale and dynamic of the rural?urban educational divide in Poland in the period 1988?2018.
 Findings & Value added: The paper emphasizes the aspect of rural?urban differences in the Polish economy and their dynamic nature. Studies have revealed that in 1988?2018, in Poland, the disparity in educational attainment between rural and urban populations was gradually reduced. This process, however, was not accompanied by the reduction of internal educational disparities in the rural space. The study results are helpful in verifying the effectiveness of public funds, allocated in recent years in order to accelerate the multi-functional development of rural areas in Poland and other CEE countries.

Disparity in Educational Attainment Partially Explains Cognitive Gender Differences in Older Rural South Africans.

Direction and magnitude of gender differences in late-life cognitive function are inextricably tied to sociocultural context. Our study evaluates education and literacy as primary drivers of gender equality in cognitive performance among middle-aged and older adults in rural South Africa. Data were collected on 1,938 participants aged 40-79 from Agincourt, South Africa. Cognitive function was measured via the Oxford Cognitive Screen-Plus, a tablet-based assessment with low literacy demands. Four cognitive domains were derived through confirmatory factor analysis: episodic memory, executive function, visual spatial, and language. Structural equation models tested domain-specific gender effects, incrementally controlling for demographic, education, health, and socioeconomic variables. In the model adjusting only for demographic factors, men outperformed women on executive function and visual-spatial domains. Adding education and literacy to the model revealed a robust female advantage in episodic memory, and reduced the magnitude of male advantage in executive function and visual and spatial by 47% and 42%, respectively. Health and socioeconomic factors did not alter patterns of gender associations in subsequent models. In this older South African cohort, gender inequality in cognitive performance was partially attributable to educational differences. Understanding biopsychosocial mechanisms that promote cognitive resilience in older women is critically important given the predominantly female composition of aging populations worldwide.

Parents’ financial assistance for college and black-white disparities in post-secondary educational attainment

This study examines the roles of parents’ socioeconomic resources and financial assistance for college in explaining persistent black-white disparities in post-secondary educational attainment. Analyses of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics data indicate that blacks are significantly less likely to receive parental financial assistance for college than whites. Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition results show that black parents’ lower socioeconomic resources, resulting from a lack of opportunity to amass resources, explains almost all racial disparity in parental assistance. Black-white disparity in parental assistance explains about one-third of racial disparities in educational attainment: If both races had the same chance of receiving parental assistance, racial disparity in obtaining a college degree would decline from 20 percentage-points to 14 percentage-points, and racial disparity in obtaining a post-college advanced degree would decrease from 8 percentage-points to 5 percentage-points. Parental socioeconomic resources and parental financial assistance together explain the majority of black-white differences in both measures of educational attainment. These results support a structural/stratification frame of racial disparities in educational attainment, not a cultural/behavioral frame. Findings suggest that reducing the impact of parents’ socioeconomic resources on parental financial assistance may promote racial equity in educational achievement.

Does Hypersegregation Matter for Black-White Socioeconomic Disparities?

Massey and Denton's concept of hypersegregation describes how multiple and distinct forms of black-white segregation lead to high levels of black-white stratification. However, numerous studies assessing the association between segregation and racial stratification applied only one or two dimensions of segregation, neglecting how multiple forms of segregation combine to potentially exacerbate socioeconomic disparities between blacks and whites. We address this by using data from the U.S. Census from 1980 to 2010 and data from the American Community Survey from 2012 to 2016 to assess trajectories for black-white disparities in educational attainment, employment, and neighborhood poverty between metropolitan areas with hypersegregation and black-white segregation, as measured by the dissimilarity index. Using a time-varying measure of segregation types, our results indicate that in some cases, hypersegregated metropolitan areas have been associated with larger black-white socioeconomic disparities beyond those found in metropolitan areas that are highly segregated in terms of dissimilarity but are not hypersegregated. However, the contrasts in black-white socioeconomic inequality between hypersegregated metropolitan areas and those with high segregation largely diminish by the 2012 to 2016 observation.

Societal Change and Educational Trajectories of Women and Men Born between 1919 and 1986 in (West) Germany

The aim of this study is to unravel the impact of societal change in Germany on educational attainment and its social disparities for cohorts born between 1919 and 1986. Therefore, we analyse whether modernisation trends have modified access to and success in general, vocational and higher education for consecutive birth cohorts. In order to explain how these processes have had an effect on class differentials in educational attainment, we assume that the interplay of the changing occupational structure at the macro level and intergenerational status maintenance via investment in the education of offspring is – among other influences – the key mechanism for long-term educational expansion and for decreasing inequalities of opportunity in the educational system. The empirical bases of our investigation are clusters of time series for macro changes and retrospective individual data for 11 birth cohorts from the German Life History Study and the National Educational Panel Study for educational outcomes. We apply piecewise exponential event-history models to analyse the direct and indirect impacts of societal change on educational trajectories and social disparities in educational attainment. The results provide an understanding of historical variations in educational transitions and attainment associated with modernisation in the social, political, economic, and cultural spheres.

Onderwijs van hoge kwaliteit

Abstract High quality education: Bridging the socioeconomic achievement gap?Widespread concerns regarding socioeconomic disparities in educational attainment contributed to this study’s aim to explore the role of providing high quality education in reducing these differences. Multilevel analysis of PISA 2015-data (N = 368.306) demonstrates that a higher socioeconomic background, a high educated teaching staff and a lower student-teacher ratio are related to higher performance in science, mathematics and reading, whereas stronger educational leadership is linked to lower student performance. In contrast with what is hypothesized, higher quality education is associated with increasing socioeconomic disparities in educational attainment, except for educational leadership. Since providing high quality education is an internationally popular strategy to enhance student performance, these results expose the urgent need for more research into its diverging role.

Is Local Social Development Associated with Workforce Composition? A Municipal Analysis of Mexico, 1990-2015.

A critical development goal involves reducing subsistence farming and encouraging entrepreneurship and formal sector employment. A growing number of studies examine cross-national variation in the rates of subsistence farming, marginal self-employment, formal employment, and prosperous entrepreneurship by level of development. However, despite significant regional disparities in development within most low-to-middle-income countries, little is known about how development at the local level is associated with labor market patterns. Using a pooled cross-section containing four waves of data from the Mexican Census (1990-2015), this study investigates the relationship between social development and municipal workforce composition. In the 1980s, Mexico initiated an ambitious and multipronged development agenda intended to reduce extreme regional disparities in educational attainment, housing quality, access to utilities, and poverty. This study measures social development using a multi-dimensional measure that captures educational attainment, housing quality, access to utilities, and poverty. Laborers are separated into employed, own-account workers, and employers, with each category divided into agricultural and non-agricultural. In a second set of analyses, non-agricultural own-account workers are categorized as high and low growth potential and non-agricultural wage workers are separated into informal and formal sector. Results from fixed effects regression models indicate that local development significantly reduces the rate of own-account agricultural work and increases non-agricultural wage labor and employer self-employment. As less developed areas advance, the largest initial increase in non-agricultural work is in the informal sector. But, in more developed communities, social development increasingly predicts growth in formal sector employment and more selective entry into non-agricultural own-account work. The findings suggest that investment in community-level social development has the potential to reduce subsistence self-employment, encourage formal sector work, and promote entrepreneurship. Yet, the greatest gains occur in communities that already have mid to high levels of social development.

Uncovering the Disparities in Educational Attainment across Urban and Rural Locations in Northern Ireland

BackgroundPrevious research investigating the influence of location in young people’s educational development often focus on measuring levels of poverty in urban communities and largely ignores the impact of rural areas and comparisons between urban and rural locations. This research advocates that including urban and rural location variables in research methodologies is imperative to gaining a fuller understanding of educational inequalities.
 ObjectivesThe aim of this research is to examine the disparities in educational attainment between urban and rural locations in Northern Ireland (hereafter NI) and to identify the possible factors associated with such location disparities. Minimal research efforts have been dedicated to understanding these inequalities and even less attention has been aimed towards explaining them in a NI context. This research aims to fill this gap in knowledge.
 MethodsA quantitative methodology, incorporating secondary data analysis will be utilised to achieve the research aims. This research will use administrative data provided by ADRC-NI which links the 2011 Census to the School Leavers Survey and School Census. Using GCSE results as a measure of educational attainment, multilevel modelling will be conducted on this data which has a sample size of N = 55,000 pupils.
 FindingsThe findings of this research will provide information on how much of the variance in pupils’ educational attainment across urban and rural locations is associated with the individual, the school and the location.
 ConclusionsThis research will add to the body of knowledge surrounding educational inequalities in NI.

Gender disparities in educational attainment in the 2010 Ghana Census

Education is an important indicator of national development and remains an ongoing concern in Sub Saharan Africa. This study investigated religion and marital status as potential sources of gender disparities in educational attainment in Ghana. Using a 10% probability sample from the 2010 Ghana Population Census, multilevel linear and nonlinear models were fitted to data comprising individuals and regions. Marital status and religion were found to be key variables that account for persistent gender differentials in education. We demonstrate individual and structural factors help explain the gender gap in educational attainment and enrolment. Analyses suggest that to close it, attention ought to be paid to individual factors as well as enhancing social, civic, and economic opportunities for females.

Gender disparities in educational attainment in the 2010 Ghana Census

Education is an important indicator of national development and remains an ongoing concern in Sub Saharan Africa. This study investigated religion and marital status as potential sources of gender disparities in educational attainment in Ghana. Using a 10% probability sample from the 2010 Ghana Population Census, multilevel linear and nonlinear models were fitted to data comprising individuals and regions. Marital status and religion were found to be key variables that account for persistent gender differentials in education. We demonstrate individual and structural factors help explain the gender gap in educational attainment and enrolment. Analyses suggest that to close it, attention ought to be paid to individual factors as well as enhancing social, civic, and economic opportunities for females.

Cognitive Aging in Black and White Americans: Cognition, Cognitive Decline, and Incidence of Alzheimer Disease Dementia.

US-based studies have reported that older blacks perform worse than older whites on cognitive tests and have higher risk of Alzheimer disease dementia (AD). It is unclear whether these findings reflect differences in cognitive decline. The Chicago Health and Aging Project followed individuals, 65+ years old (64% black, 36% white), for up to 18 years. Participants underwent triennial cognitive assessments; stratified randomized samples underwent assessments for AD. We compared black and white participants' cognitive performance, cognitive decline rate (N = 7,735), and AD incidence (N = 2,144), adjusting for age and sex. Black participants performed worse than white participants on the cognitive tests; 441 participants developed AD. Black participants' incident AD risk was twice that of whites (RR = 1.9; 95% CI, 1.4, 2.7), with 58 excess cases/1,000 occurring among blacks (95% CI, 28, 88). Among noncarriers of APOE ε4, blacks had 2.3 times the AD risk (95% CI, 1.5, 3.6), but among carriers, race was not associated with risk (RR = 1.1; 95% CI, 0.6, 2.0; Pinteraction = 0.05). However, cognitive decline was not faster among blacks: the black-white difference in 5-year change in global cognitive score was 0.007 standard unit (95% CI, -0.034, 0.047). Years of education accounted for a sizable portion of racial disparities in cognitive level and AD risk, in analyses using a counterfactual approach. The higher risk of AD among blacks may stem from lower level of cognitive test performance persisting throughout the observation period rather than faster rate of late-life cognitive decline. Disparities in educational attainment may contribute to these performance disparities. See video abstract at, http://links.lww.com/EDE/B299.

Measuring Gender Equality in Education: Lessons from Trends in 43 Countries

Measuring Gender Equality in Education: Lessons from Trends in 43 Countries

Toward a Social Justice Model for an EdD Program in Higher Education

Evaluative in nature, this article includes an initial examination of a doctoral program uniquely designed to prepare higher education administrators and practitioners to be socially just and equity-minded leaders. The program emphasizes the integration of equity, social justice, and ethics into professional practice. As such, this article utilizes a social justice, leadership framework. Originally designed in 2006 by Colleen Capper, GeorgeTheoharis, and James Sebastian to prepare secondary administrators for social justice leadership, the framework assists with the enclosed evaluation of a program that prepares postsecondary administrators for social justice leadership. The article delineates the effectiveness of the program’s implementation and the extent to which the program’s goals, curriculum, and pedagogy align with components of the framework. The program has been chosen because of its commitment to addressing socio-economic and educational attainment disparities in higher education through the focused teaching and professional development of academic and student affairs personnel.

Intra-District Disparities in Primary Education: A Case Study of Bankura District, West Bengal

The level of education and its response to different educational opportunities vary from one spatial unit to another depending on various factors like social, economic, cultural, and institutional. It is understood that certain regions acquire relative advancements over others in terms of human resource development and human capital formation. The key purpose of this research is to examine the intra-district disparities in primary education in Bankura District one of the districts of West Bengal. It ranks 11thamong the 19 districts of West Bengal (Human Development Report, 2007). Overall literacy rate of the district stands at 70.26% but the district scores low in terms of female literacy rates, which is 60.05%,whereas the male literacy rate is 80.05%, which is a huge gender literacy gap of 20%. There are also regional inequalities existing at block level. Kotulpur ranks first with a literacy rate of 78.01% while Saltora occupies the bottom position with literacy rate of just 61.45% (Census of India, 2011). The level of educational development is dependent on several factors—enrolment ratio, dropout and repetition rates, pupil-teacher ratio, habitations covered by educational institutions, space-student ratio, drinking water and sanitation facilities in school, etc. In this context, the present study aims at examining the issues of intra-district disparities in educational attainment with regard to various educational amenities of Bankura district, West Bengal. Ten attributes have been selected to examine the level of development in primary education. It is clear from the study that the level of development in eastern part of the district is relatively better in comparison to other regions. Economic backwardness and physical bottlenecks continue to be major issues in western blocks.

Interpreting the Disparity in Educational Attainment among Various Socio-religious Groups in India

This study is an attempt to identify the origin of disparity in educational participation and educational achievement among various socio-religious groups in India. To accomplish this objective, we run the logistic model of regression to estimate the differential influences of the monetary returns to education and some personal, household and community-related factors affecting educational decisions of the school-age children across the groups. Then we use the method of inequality decomposition applicable for logit/probit model and decompose the existing inequality in the proportion of educational participation between some pairs of the socio-religious groups into ‘response effect’ and ‘attribute effect’.It is observed that there exists sharp disparity in educational participation among the various groups. A rise in estimated returns enhances the educational decisions of the members of the disadvantaged groups irrespective of their age and levels of education, but it can enhance the educational decisions of the members of the advantaged groups only at the upper end of their school-age. The percentage contribution of the ‘response effect’ of disparity in the rate of educational participation between Hindu-others and Muslims is greater compared to that of the ‘attribute effect’, but the former declines with the rise in the level of education. However, a significant proportion of the disparities in the educational participation between Hindu-others and Hindu-SC, and Hindu-others and Hindu-ST, is attributed to the characteristic differences at all levels of education except the middle.

Effects of Extracurricular Participation During Middle School on Academic Motivation and Achievement at Grade 9.

We investigated the effect of participating in two domains of extracurricular activities (sports and performance arts/clubs) in Grades 7 and 8 on Grade 9 academic motivation and letter grades, above baseline performance. Participants were 483 students (55% male; 33% Euro-American, 25% African American, and 39% Latino). Propensity score weighting controlled for potential confounders in all analyses. Delayed (Grade 8 only) and continuous participation (Grades 7 and 8) in sports predicted competence beliefs and valuing education; delayed and continuous participation in performance arts/clubs predicted teacher-rated engagement and letter grades. Benefits of participation were similar across gender and ethnicity; however, Latino youth were least likely to participate in extracurricular activities. Implications for reducing ethnic and income disparities in educational attainment are discussed.

Disaggregated Pattern of Gender Gap in Education In Indian Population: A Fresh Exploration

Equal access to educational opportunity is a basic human right essential to well being. Yet educational gap at attainment levels between male and female in India is staggering. Reduction in such gap is essential for more than one reason. Latest population census 2001 indicates considerable difference in literacy rate at all India as well as state level between male and female. Furthermore, NSSO 55th round data also strongly substantiate this finding. In this paper we use mapping technique to depict the state level pattern of gender inequality in literacy rate based on Census data. Section III deals with gender gap in average years of schooling on the basis of scholastic attainment data from NSSO 55th round. In the next section we employ Educational Lorenz distribution and Gini coefficient to grasp the distributive dimension of gender inequality in education. Considering equitable educational development as a function of average years of schooling and education Gini coefficient, in the next section we have undergone decomposition of gender gap in equitable educational development, both at the national and at the sub-national level. The results of the decomposition analysis clearly indicate that both in the urban and rural sector, gender gap in equitable educational development are largely due to gender gap in average years of schooling. The gender gap in the educational distribution is much less important. Finally we analyse the relationship between gender gap in equitable educational development and monthly per capita expenditure to examine the relationship between economic affluence and gender equality in education. For the urban population, the analysis shows that economic prosperity can combat gender disparity in educational attainment and the finding is more or less robust. But state level disaggregative analysis, however, does not always confirm the above findings. For the rural population, surprisingly, economic prosperity has significant positive relationship with gender gap in education. The study concludes that prosperity alone can not ensure gender equality in education in Indian societies. Findings of this study may be found to be helpful for researcher, planners and activist in this field.

Family Socioeconomic Status, Immigration, and Children's Transitions Into School.

Family scholars have contributed a great deal to the growing literature documenting how children's transitions into elementary school serve as a critical period in their educational careers and, more broadly, in socioeconomic and demographic disparities in long-term educational attainment. The purpose of this review is to describe how this school transition works, why it has short- and long-term ramifications for educational inequality, and how it may be amenable to policy intervention and, then, to elucidate how research that looks inside children-including neuroscience-may deepen and build on what is already known in meaningful ways. Throughout, the discussion focuses on children from low-income families and children from Latin American immigrant families, two groups of children who are central to child- and family-focused efforts to understand and remedy educational inequality.

Ethnic disparities in educational attainment in China: considering the implications of interethnic families

This paper addresses the question of whether the classification of interethnic children, defined as those with one parent who is ethnic majority Han and one parent who is a member of an officially designated minority group, shapes observed patterns of educational advantage and disadvantage across official ethnic groups in China. Utilizing census data from 2000 and focusing on junior high school attainment as an outcome, we address three questions: among children classified as members of officially recognized minority groups, are interethnic children systematically different in terms of educational outcomes from non-interethnic children?; are interethnic children who are classified as minority systematically different in terms of educational outcomes from interethnic children who are classified as Han?; and, are observed patterns of educational stratification by ethnic group sensitive to the classification of interethnic children? Results show that interethnic children – whether classified as Han or minority – are generally educationally advantaged compared to their non-interethnic co-ethnics, and, in some cases, are faring comparably to or better than Han children. Moreover, the classification of interethnic children does make a difference for observed patterns of stratification. Interethnic children’s access advantage contributes to the observed advantage among historically advantaged groups and mitigates some of the disadvantages observed among historically disadvantaged groups. Better understanding of ethnic stratification in China will require additional information on the boundaries and porousness of ethnic categories. Future survey data collection efforts should consider adding questions about ethnic heritage, identity, and classification changes to the standard question about official ethnic classification.