Economic Attainment Research Articles

Community College Access, Mission, and Outcomes: Considering Intriguing Intersections and Challenges

Since their inception, community colleges have carried out a number of complex and often competing programs or foci. The transfer, vocational, developmental, and continuing and community service foci have become increasingly important as the mission of community colleges has evolved. During their early history, operating primarily as transfer institutions, the student population of junior colleges was not especially diverse-traditional age, male, White, college-bound students filled most classrooms. As times passed and as enrollments grew, community colleges became increasingly diverse in the students they serve and in their purposes for being. Today, community colleges fulfill a multiplicity of roles within their communities, offering a myriad of educational programs and services with a broad and sometimes contradictory set of intended outcomes. This article summarizes pertinent literature related to community college access, mission, and outcomes, exploring the complex intersections between these important constructs. It concludes that meeting the needs and goals of students should be paramount in conceptualizing outcomes, otherwise community colleges will continue to be criticized by populists who observe that they are not reaching enough students and elitists who believe they do not meet traditional outcomes linked to educational and economic attainment.

Paradigms in the Study of Race Relations in Brazil

Three paradigms are distinguished in the study of racial relations in Brazil during the 20th century. The first one, the paradigm of morenidade, is associated with Gilberto Freyre, but in spite of outward disagreements, it is shared by Marvin Harris and Carl Degler, whose respective formulations, `referential ambiguity in the calculus of racial identity' and `neither black nor white', have the same basic meaning as Freyre's moreno. A second paradigm is associated with Florestan Fernandes, who stresses the merely residual character of race prejudice and racial inequality in Brazil. The third paradigm, due to Carlos Hasenbalg, posits persistent racial discrimination as the cause of the inequality between whites and non-whites in levels of economic, educational and other attainment. The differences between these paradigms, and even between authors whose conclusions belong in the same paradigm, are largely due to their underlying models of historical development.

Africa: Dilemmas of Development and Change (review)

Peter Lewis presents a collection of classic essays on African economic and political development, along with works on emerging issues on the continent. The readings focus mainly on broader comparative themes. Lewis admits that the selections reflect his own biases, derived mainly from the traditions of historical sociology and political development theories. The rationale he offers for his method of selection is that it makes it possible to focus on domestic, social, and political factors, instead of international linkages, as key variables in the development process. He also notes that the selected essays offer an eclectic perspective of state, societies, and economies in modern Africa. The central thesis of the book is that, although African states vary greatly in terms of their territories, populations, cultures, resources, and histories, the variation should not obscure the common problems and challenges they have encountered in their postindependence development. Those common problems are said to revolve around the following major issues: (1) the quest for good governance; (2) the pursuit of unity among heterogeneous societies; and (3) the striving for economic attainment. The book is divided into an introduction section and five major parts. The introduction section, written by Lewis, entails a brief historical overview of the development challenges facing Africa, and a survey of the major schools of thought that have emerged in the examination of the subject. Part One has essays by Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg, Richard Joseph, and Richard Sandbrook. These three essays focus on the basic features of political authority and control in the postindependence era. Part Two is also comprised of three works, by Peter Ekeh, Victor Azarya and Naomi Chazan, and Peter Lewis. These works examine Africa's political development from a societal perspective and offer a broad perspective on the relations between state and society. Part Three is made up of four articles by Richard Sklar, Catherine Boone, Donald Rothchild, and Aili Mari Trip. The nature of social inequalities in Africa and the effects of social division on political activity are the themes of these articles. Part Four has four articles by Larry Diamond, Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, Pearl Robinson, and Crawford Young. These essays look at the various phases and challenges of political reform in Africa. Finally, Part Five also entails four studies by Tony Killick, Thomas Callaghy, John Ravenhill, and Jeffrey Herbst. Alternative theories of economic development in terms of Africa's economic evolution is the subject matter of these essays. In sum, while the arguments presented in these well-written essays may perhaps be novel to an audience unfamiliar with African economic and political development literature, they are well known to scholars familiar with the economics and politics of the developing world, especially those of Africa. Thus, the book adds very little insight to current understanding [End Page 200] of the factors that may have precipitated Africa's economic, political, and social dilemmas. At best, it is a good collection of essays on the economic and political downturn in postindependence Africa. The strength of the book hinges on the separate synopses that precede each of the five major parts. They allow the reader to get a cohesive picture of the various essays. However, the book would have profited greatly by including works by Marxist/Neo-Marxist Africanists, such as Samir Amin, Scandinavian Africanists, such as Bjorn Hettne, and Chinese Africanists, such as Xia Jisheng. As we seek to canonize Africanist scholars, it is imperative that we employ relatively more objective approaches in making our selections.

Historical Contingency and Commercialisation in Xishuangbanna, China

This paper examines the driving forces of recent economic change in Xishuangbanna, a relatively developed ethnic minority prefecture in South West China. Its above‐average achievement in economic growth draws greatly on commercial farming, tourism and border trade. Certain events in recent local history are shown to have had important effects on the sectoral concentration of economic activities, the level of economic attainment, and the form and outcomes of institutional change in the era of market reform from 1978. The findings indicate aspects of path dependency in economic change, and illustrate difficulties and challenges faced by China's ethnic minority areas in overcoming economic backwardness.

Ethnic and Religious Components of the Jewish Income Advantage, 1969 and 1989

Because Jewish ethnicity and religion do not necessarily coincide, the income advantage associated with Jewish identity can be separated into its ethnic and religious components. We estimate the impact of Jewish ethnicity and religion on household income in 1969 and 1989. In both years, ethnically Jewish households had a considerable income advantage over other non‐Hispanic White households. This advantage appears to have persisted even among households without full‐time workers. Mixed‐ethnicity households (those with both Jewish‐born and non‐Jewish workers) had a conspicuous advantage in 1969 but not in 1989. While religion brought an additional income advantage to Reform, Conservative, and nondenominational Jews, Orthodoxy was associated with a relative disadvantage. Orthodox Judaism appears to impede economic attainment, perhaps by isolating its adherents from the social and economic networks established by the broader Jewish community.

Paternal involvement with adolescents in intact families: The influence of fathers over the life course

We measure the quality and quantity of fathers' involvement with adolescent children in intact families over time using longitudinal data from The National Survey of Children. We examine differentials in fathers' involvement by children's and family characteristics and model the long-term effects of fathers' involvement on children's outcomes in the transition to adulthood. Fathers are more involved with sons than with daughters and they disengage from adolescents with increasing marital conflict. We find beneficial effects for children of father's involvement in three domains: educational and economic attainment, delinquent behavior, and psychological well-being. The course of affective relations throughout adolescence also has a beneficial effect on delinquent behavior and psychological well-being.

Is High School Employment Consumption or Investment?

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this study examines whether employment by high school students improves or worsens economic attainment 6 to 9 years after the scheduled date of high school graduation. There is no indication that light to moderate job commitments ever have a detrimental impact and hours worked during the senior grade are positively correlated with future earnings, fringe benefits, and occupational status. These results are robust across a variety of specifications and suggest that employment increases net investments in human capital and facilitates the school- to-work transition, particularly towards the end of high school and for students not continuing on to college.

Economic Reform and Attainment in Basic Education in China

Using such conventional yardsticks as economic growth, the performance of the Chinese economy in the post–Mao era is nothing short of spectacular. However, with the unfolding of events in the reform era, some commentators have struck a discordant note amidst a chorus of praise. They have called into question the success of China if development is seen as the enhancement of the quality of life through longer lives and better education.1 In the realm of education, reports of such problems as child labour, falling school enrolment, rising drop–out rates and widening regional as well as rural–urban disparities have captured the attention of policy–makers and scholars in China and abroad.

The Role of Perceptions of Prejudice and Discrimination on the Adjustment of Minority Students to College

College participation by minority students declined in the middle 1980s following a period of sustained growth [21]. This trend was particularly evident among African Americans and Hispanics [46] who exhibited both the lowest participation rates as well as the highest propensity to drop out from college. Porter's [45] analyses of the high-school senior class of 1980, for instance, revealed that Hispanic college students were 13 percent more prone to withdraw from college than were white students, whereas African American college students were 22 percent more likely to drop out than their white counterparts over a six-year period. These low persistence rates (even over extended periods of enrollment in college) are particularly troublesome from a policy perspective given the relationship that the attainment of a bachelor's degree has on subsequent occupational and economic attainment [44]. Several reasons have been advanced to account for these trends. Hauser and Anderson [21] explored the extent to which declines in college participation rates could be attributed to changes in college aspirations as well as to changes in high-school completion rates among African Americans. After analyzing college aspiration trends for both minorities and nonminorities over a period of thirty years and taking into account high-school completion rates and indicators of socioeconomic status, Hauser and Anderson could not find support for this hypothesis. Other researchers have speculated that the decline could be attributed to changes in the composition of federal assistance and to patterns of financing higher education exhibited by minority students. Porter [45] noted that declines in minorities' college participation rates correlated with the growth of student loans at the expense of grants. Olivas [41], Mortenson and Wu [31], and Mortenson [30] observed that African American and Hispanic students were less willing to go into debt to finance their college education than were white students. Moreover, Ekstrom [19] helped to establish and test the proposition that students willing to go into debt to finance their education were more likely to enroll and persist in college. An alternative explanation to the role of finances in the persistence process has stressed the influence of academic preparation for college. Tinto [56] argued that overall differences in persistence rates between minorities and nonminorities were primarily due to differences in their academic preparedness rather than differences in their socioeconomic backgrounds. Tinto further contended that these ability differences arise from prior educational experiences at the elementary and secondary educational levels which tend to favor the educational achievement of nonminorities relative to minorities. Some degree of support has been given to this hypothesis. St. John, Kirshstein, and Noell [50], for instance, reported that the effects of ethnicity disappeared once academic preparation for college was taken into account for the high-school class of 1980. The proposition that a lack of adjustment to predominantly white institutions and that perceptions of prejudice (racial climate) may lower the quality of college experiences of minority students has emerged as a competing explanation for the differences in persistence rates between minority and nonminority college students [for example, 1, 18, 23, 24, 28, 34, 35, 36, 53]. Fleming [18], in particular, has argued that adjustment problems with the curriculum, lack of support services, financial problems and the nature of interpersonal relationships with faculty, peers and academic staff are some of the experiences that negatively impact minority students attending predominantly white institutions. Likewise, Tracey and Sedlacek [57, 58, 59] have contended that noncognitive factors (that is, self-concept, an understanding of racism, and the ability to cope with it) play a more critical role in shaping academic performance in college and persistence decisions among minority students than do cognitive factors such as academic ability and study habits. …

From International Migration to Transnational Diaspora

In his influential history of American immigrants, Oscar Handlin (1973:3) wrote: Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history. Indeed, the sociology of international migration has been a central concern of American sociology, of which William I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki's Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918/1958) remains a foundational text (see Wiley 1986). An inspired work of the sociological imagination, Polish Peasant analyzed historical and structural changes in Poland and the United States and their interrelationships without squelching personal narratives and experiences. Thomas and Znaniecki not only employed a wide array of methods and data sources, but also combined theoretical and practical discussions in their sustained empirical inquiry. In spite of American sociology's auspicious beginning, very few current works bring together the personal with the historical and the structural, advance theories and inform politics, and use multiple methods and data sources. At the same time, several bedrock assumptions-best exemplified in the narrative structure of Handlin's extremely influential Uprooted-have guided the majority of international migration studies. sojourn of immigrants entails a radical, and in many cases a singular, break from the old country to the new nation; migration is inter-national across well-defined national territories and boundaries. In the process of unidirectional crossing, migrants are uprooted and shorn of premigration networks, cultures, and belongings. At the shores of the new land, migrants enter the caldron of a new society. melting pot assimilates migrants; the huddled masses become Americans. In analyzing international migration, sociologists have plunged into and plumbed the depth and breadth of various waves of immigrants. They have analyzed macrostructural changes affecting international migration, the persistence of premigration networks, gender and other sources of social differentiation, and the differential adaptation and assimilation of distinct migrant streams. Yet theoretical and methodological concerns remain rooted in the classic immigration narrative and statistical analyses of survey and census data. historical and the ethnographic impulse of Polish Peasantand most glaringly the place of personal narratives-has largely sunk with only a few traces (see, e.g., Hondagneu-Sotelo 1994). In pursuing scientific rigor, most sociologists have consigned individual voices to the academic periphery-the marginalia of Americana. International Migration Review [IMR], the flagship journal of migration studies in the United States, exemplifies this trend. special issue on The New Second Generation (IMR 28:4, 1994), edited by Alejandro Portes, features a wide range of interesting and informative articles. vast majority of them, however, focus on the questions of socioeconomic and cultural accommodation and assimilation and rely predominantly on survey and census data. A similar range of topics and methods characterizes most recent articles in IMR (the first three articles in the previous issue, 28:3, 1994, are on unauthorized workers, naturalization, and economic attainment). repressed legacy of Polish Peasant has, however, revived with a vengeance in recent publications, which mark a sea change in the study of international migration. No longer is it adequate to peruse International Migration Review: New journals-Diaspora (Oxford University Press)

Patterns of Economic Attainment of Foreign-Born Male Workers in the United States

This article is concerned with the economic attainment patterns of foreign-born male workers in the United States in 1980. The economic attainment patterns of males born in 92 countries of the world are examined and are compared among themselves, as well as among the seven principal U.S.-born groups of Anglos, Afro-American, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, Asian Americans, and American Indians. For all foreign-born groups, the article examines the degree to which such individual-level factors as educational attainment, labor market experience, and so forth account for their variation in economic attainment. We conclude that although microlevel characteristics are not the complete answer, they are important for most foreign-born populations in explaining their variation in earnings.

Reconsidering the Effects of Marital Disruption

This article identifies predivorce individual and family characteristics that explain a portion of the effect of parental separation on the long-term well-being of children. Using longitudinal data from the National Survey of Children (NSC), the authors discuss how much of the relationship between a separation and measures of adult well-being (including educational and economic attainment, patterns of family formation, delinquency, and psychological well-being) is due to selectivity of parents into more fragile marriages and to family conflict that often precedes the physical departure of a parent from the household. The results of the study indicate that divorce is associated with some outcomes, although much of its putative effect diminishes when predivorce factors are accounted for. The authors suggest that researchers give more careful consideration to the processes leading up to a separation as part of the divorce experience of children.

Patterns of Economic Attainment of Foreign-Born Male Workers in the United States

Patterns of Economic Attainment of Foreign-Born Male Workers in the United States

Influences on the Choice of Math/Science Major by Gender and Ethnicity

Women and minorities continue to be underrepresented in quantitatively based fields of study. Additionally, selection by all students of such majors is declining. Math/Science major choice is of concern in light of the occupational demands created by advancing technology as well as the potential gaps in occupational and economic attainment of women and minorities. This article reports the analysis of a longitudinal model of math/science major choice upon entrance to college for black and white, female and male students. The model was tested using a sample drawn from the “High School and Beyond” data base. The model included background characteristics of students, ability, and an array of high school experience factors to explain choice of quantitative major. Significant predictors of major choice for the subgroups included sophomore choice of major, mathematics attitudes, math and science completed by senior year, and various parental factors. However, there were differences across groups and the model explained nearly twice as much variance for the black male, black female, and white male subgroups compared with the white female subgroup. Recommendations include broadening our ways of researching migration into and out of the mathematics/science pipeline. Argument is made for a focus on success of students enrolled in low level college mathematics classes as a way of augmenting the mathematics/scientific pipeline.

Aboriginality and Socioeconomic Attainment in Australia's Northern Territory

Aboriginality occupies an ambiguous position within the dominant discourse of Australian stratification systems. Al though most sociology texts document the condition of Abor iginals with numerous social indicators of disadvantage, there has been little serious attempt to explore the complex causal processes which position them within the European social structure. The population of the Northern Territory, of which just under a quarter are Aboriginal, presents therefore an in teresting field for investigating the effects of Aboriginality as a causal component of an individual's life chances. Results from regression models tested on 1986 Census data indicate that while Aboriginality exerts a significant influence on socio economic attainment, there are important differences in the patterns of causal explanation of life chances between rural and urban Aboriginals. In some respects these are as prominent as the general effect of race itself. Implications of these findings for the contemporary definitions of Aboriginality as a dimen sion of the wider Australian stratification system are dis cussed.

The earnings of Canadian immigrant and native-born males

This paper examines the economic attainment of Canadian immigrants. Although foreign-born males initially earn less than the native-born, their earnings rise more rapidly with Canadian labour market experience, and after 14years their earnings equal and exceed those of the native population. It is also shown that the use of Mincer's identity leads to biased results when estimating the earnings of the immigrant population.

Children of Single Parent Families: How They Fare as Young Adults

Using data from a survey of 19 to 34 year olds in a Midwestern metropolitan county, this paper investigates differences in how persons raised in single parent families and traditional two parent families are faring in early adulthood. Results indicate that compared to their counterparts from traditional two parent families, young adults raised by single parents (primarily single mothers) tend to have lower educational, occupational and economic attainment. Differences between the two groups are also observed in family formation and marital stability. The economic disadvantage of the single parent background is clearly responsible for some of these differences, but significant differences in economic attainment, marital stability, and the timing of parenthood still remain after controlling for this factor. Possible implications of these findings for improving the life chances of children from single parent families are discussed.

On the Relative Economic Progress of U.S.-Born Filipino Men

Previous articleNext article No AccessOn the Relative Economic Progress of U.S.-Born Filipino MenEdwin T. Fujii and James MakEdwin T. Fujii Search for more articles by this author and James Mak Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Economic Development and Cultural Change Volume 33, Number 3Apr., 1985 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/451479 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 10Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1985 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Isao Takei, Arthur Sakamoto, Daniel A. Powers Are Asian Americans Disadvantaged by Residing More in the West? Migration, Region, and Earnings among Asian American Men, Sociology Mind 02, no.0202 (Jan 2012): 158–168.https://doi.org/10.4236/sm.2012.22021Deborah Woo, Paul Ong, Don Mar Asian Americans in the Labor Market: Public Policy Issues, AAPI Nexus: Policy, Practice and Community 3, no.22 (Jan 2005): 39–58.https://doi.org/10.17953/appc.3.2.f527172873409757Ami R. Moore, Foster K. Amey Earnings differentials among male African immigrants in the United States, Equal Opportunities International 21, no.88 (Dec 2002): 30–50.https://doi.org/10.1108/02610150210787244Don Mar Regional Differences in Asian American Earnings Discrimination: Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino American Earnings in California and Hawaii, Amerasia Journal 25, no.22 (Feb 2019): 65–94.https://doi.org/10.17953/amer.25.2.t733024416163600Dudley L. Poston Patterns of Economic Attainment of Foreign-Born Male Workers in the United States, International Migration Review 28, no.33 (Jun 2018): 478–500.https://doi.org/10.1177/019791839402800303Sulayman S. Al-Qudsi, Nasra M. Shah The Relative Economic Progress of Male Foreign Workers in Kuwait , International Migration Review 25, no.11 (Jun 2018): 141–166.https://doi.org/10.1177/019791839102500106Samia El-Badry, Dudley L. Poston Fitting In: Socio-Economic Attainment Patterns of Foreign-Born Egyptians in the United States, Sociological Inquiry 60, no.22 (Apr 1990): 142–157.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682X.1990.tb00135.xSumner J La Croix, Price V Fishback Firm-specific evidence on racial wage differentials and workforce segregation in Hawaii's sugar industry, Explorations in Economic History 26, no.44 (Oct 1989): 403–423.https://doi.org/10.1016/0014-4983(89)90016-8Mamoru Tsukada Income Parity through Different Paths: Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Caucasians in Hawaii, Amerasia Journal 14, no.22 (Feb 2019): 47–60.https://doi.org/10.17953/amer.14.2.84112vg71n42m015Glenn Omatsu Annual Selected Bibliography, Amerasia Journal 12, no.22 (Jan 1985): 129–157.https://doi.org/10.17953/amer.12.2.f241272621731l21

The place of odds ratios in the study of place, race and differential occupational opportunities

During the last few decades the study of racial differences in occupational and economic attainment has progressed rapidly, both in terms of theory and research. The ecological study of the racial and ethnic organization of local labor markets has not. The use of odds ratios and occupation-specific categories may provide a fruitful avenue for future research in the study of inequality across space and time.

A Model of Stratification with Response Error in Social and Psychological Variables

The well-known Wisconsin model of achievement posits that the influence of socioeconomic origins on educational, occupational and economic attainment is largelv mediated bY acsademic performance, social influences and aspirations in secondary schooling. The model has been widely replicated, elaborated and criticized. The present analysis asks how powerful this model might be in accounting for social influences, aspirations and attainments when measurement error has been taken into account. There are two indicators of most theoretical construc ts in the model, and manv of these were ascertained from independent sources or as many as 20 Years apart. The model identifies selected response error c orrelations between variables ascertained on the same occasion, from the same person or using the same method. The model also permits retrospective reports of social influences and aspirations to be c ontaminated by intervening events. In our revised estimates, we find empirical support for earlier spec ificsations of the Wisconsin model. We alsofind that the revised model is more powerful in explaining the process of educational and occupational attainment.