The achievement gap between low-income minority students and middle-income white students has been a popular research topic among sociologists since the publication of the report, "Equality of Educational Opportunity" (more widely known as the
Coleman Report). This report was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education in 1966 to investigate whether the performance of African-American students was caused by their attending schools of a lesser quality than white students. The report suggested that both in-school factors and home/community factors affect the academic achievement of students and contribute to the achievement gap that exists between races. The study of the achievement gap can be addressed from two standpoints—from a supply-side and a demand-side viewpoint of education. In
Poor Economics, Banerjee and Duflo explain the two families of arguments surrounding education of underserved populations. Demand-side arguments focus on aspects of minority populations that influence education achievement. These include family background and culture, which shape perceptions and expectations surrounding education. A large body of research has been dedicated to studying these factors contributing to the achievement gap. Supply-side arguments focus on the provision of education and resources and the systemic structures in place that perpetuate the achievement gap. These include neighborhoods, funding, and policy. In 2006, Ladson-Billings called on education researchers to move the spotlight of education research away from family background to take into account the rest of the factors that affect educational achievement, as explained by the Coleman Report. The concept of opportunity gaps—rather than achievement gaps—has changed the paradigm of education research to assess education from a top-down approach.
Social belonging A person's sense of social belonging is one non-cognitive factor that plays a part in the racial achievement gap. Some of the processes that threaten a person's sense of belonging in schools include
social stigma, negative intellectual stereotypes, and numeric under-representation. Walton and Cohen describe three ways in which a sense of social belonging boosts motivation, the first being positive self-image. By adopting similar interests as those who a person considers to be socially significant, it may help to increase or affirm a person's sense of his or her personal worth. Oakland students that come from low socioeconomic families are less likely to attend schools that provide equal education as wealthier schools that come from major American cities. This means that only two of ten students will go to schools that have a closing achievement gap. Students who do not fall into the majority or dominant group in their schools often worry about whether or not they will belong and find a valued place in their school. Their thoughts are often centered around whether they will be accepted and valued for who they are around their peers.
Purpose When students feel that what they are doing has purpose, they are more likely to succeed academically. Students who identify and actively work towards their individual, purposeful, life goals have a better chance at eliminating disengagement that commonly occurs in middle school and continues into later adolescence. These life goals give students a chance to believe that their school work is done in hopes of achieving larger, more long-term goals that matter to the world. This also gives students the opportunity to feel that their lives have meaning by working towards these goals. Students having a growth mindset believe that their intelligence can be developed over time. Those with a fixed mindset believe that their intelligence is fixed and cannot grow and develop. Students with growth mindsets tend to outperform their peers who have fixed mindsets. Dweck points out that teachers have a high degree of influence on which kind of mindset a student develops in school. When people are taught with a growth mindset, the ideas of challenging themselves and putting in more effort follow. People believe that each mindset is better than the other, which causes students to feel that they are not as good as other students in school. A big question that is asked in schooling is when does someone feel smart: when they are flawless or when they are learning? Research shows that teacher effectiveness is the most important in-school factor affecting student learning. Good teachers can actually close or eliminate the gaps in achievement on the standardized tests that separate white and minority students. Schools also tend to place students in
tracking groups as a means of tailoring lesson plans for different types of learners. However, as a result of schools placing emphasis on socioeconomic status and cultural capital, minority students are vastly over-represented in lower educational tracks. Similarly, Hispanic and African American students are often wrongly placed into lower tracks based on teachers' and administrators' expectations for minority students. Such expectations of a race within school systems are a form of
institutional racism. Some researchers compare the tracking system to a modern form of
racial segregation within the schools. Studies on tracking groups within schools have also proven to be detrimental for minority students. Once students are in these lower tracks, they tend to have less-qualified teachers, a less challenging curriculum, and few opportunities to advance into higher tracks. There is also some research that suggests students in lower tracks suffer from social psychological consequences of being labeled as a slower learner, which often leads children to stop trying in school. In fact, many sociologists argue that tracking in schools does not provide any lasting benefits to any group of students. The practice of awarding low grades and test scores to children who struggle causes low-performing children to experience anxiety, demoralization, and a loss of control. This undermines performance,
School funding and geography The quality of school that a student attends and the socioeconomic status of the student's residential neighborhood are two factors that can affect a student's academic performance. In the United States, only 8% of public education funding comes from the federal government. The other 92% comes from local, state, and private sources. Local funding is considered unequal as it is based on property taxes. So those who are in areas in which there is lower property value have less funded schools, making schools unequal within a district. This system means that schools located in areas with lower real estate values have proportionately less money to spend per pupil than schools located in areas with higher real estate values. This system has also maintained a "funding segregation": because minority students are much more likely to live in a neighborhood with lower property values, they are much more likely to attend a school that receives significantly lower funding. The research that was conducted shows that predominantly white schools have more resources than black schools. However, lack of resources is only a small effect on academic achievement in comparison to students' family backgrounds. Living in a high-poverty or disadvantaged neighborhood have been shown to negatively influence educational aspirations and consequently attainment. The
Moving to Opportunity experiment showed that moving to a low-poverty neighborhood had a positive effect on the educational attainment of minority adolescents. The school characteristics associated with the low-poverty neighborhoods proved to be effective mediators, since low-poverty neighborhoods tended to have more favorable school composition, safety, and quality. Additionally, living in a neighborhood with economic and social inequalities leads to negative attitudes and more problematic behavior due to and social tensions. Greater college aspirations have been correlated with more
social cohesiveness among neighborhood youth, since community support from both youth and adults in the neighborhood tends to have a positive influence on educational aspirations. Some researchers believe that vouchers should be given to low income students so they can go to school in other places. However, other researchers believe that the idea of vouchers promotes equality and doesn't eliminate it. This isolation from white American communities is highly correlated with low property values and high-poverty neighborhoods. This issue is propagated by issues of home ownership facing minorities, especially African Americans and Latino Americans, since residential areas predominantly populated by these minority groups are perceived as less attractive in the housing market. Home ownership by minority groups is further undermined by institutionalized discriminatory practices, such as differential treatment of African Americans and Latino Americans in the housing market compared with white Americans. Higher mortgages charged to African American or Latino American buyers make it more difficult for members of these minority groups to attain full home ownership and accumulate wealth. As a result, African American and Latino American groups continue to live in racially segregated neighborhoods and face the socioeconomic consequences of residential segregation. Differences in the academic performance of African-American and white students exist even in schools that are desegregated and diverse, and studies have shown that a school's racial mix does not seem to have much effect on changes in reading scores after sixth grade, or on math scores at any age. In fact, minority students in segregated-minority schools have more optimism and greater educational aspirations as well as achievements than minority students in segregated-white schools. This can be attributed to various factors, including the attitudes of faculty and staff at segregated-white schools and the effect of stereotype threat.
Education debt Education debt is a theory developed by
Gloria Ladson-Billings, a pedagogical theorist, to attempt to explain the racial achievement gap. As defined by a colleague of Ladson-Billings, professor emeritus Robert Haveman, education debt is the "foregone schooling resources that we could have (should have) been investing in (primarily) low income kids, which deficit leads to a variety of social problems (e.g. crime, low productivity, low wages, low labor force participation) that require on-going public investment". The education debt theory has historical, economic, sociopolitical and moral components. For instance, Asian parents often apply strict rules and parental authoritarianism to their children while many white American parents deem creativity and self-sufficiency to be more valuable.
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Yale Professor Amy Chua highlights some of the very important aspects in East Asian parenting method in comparison to the "American way". Chua's book has generated interests and controversies in the "Tiger Mom" parenting method and its role in determining children's education outcomes. Many Hispanic parents and their children believe that a college degree is necessary for obtaining stable and meaningful work. This attitude is reflected in the educational expectations parents hold for their children and in the expectations that young people have for themselves (U.S. Department of Education, 1995b, p. 88). High educational expectations can be found among all racial and ethnic groups regardless of their economic and social resources (p. 73). Although parents and children share high educational aims, their aspirations do not necessarily translate into postsecondary matriculation. This is especially the case for Hispanic high school students, particularly those whose parents have not attended college. Parental involvement in children's education is influential to children's success at school. Teachers often view low parental involvement as a barrier to student success. Collaboration between teachers and parents is necessary when working to help a child; parents have the necessary knowledge of what is best for their child's situation. However, the student body in schools is diverse, and although teachers make an effort to try and understand each child's unique cultural beliefs, it is important that they are meeting with parents to get a clear understanding of what needs should be met in order for the student to succeed. School administrators must accommodate and account for family differences and also be supportive by promoting ways families can get involved. For example, schools can provide support by accommodating the needs of the family who have do not have transportation, schools may do so by providing external resources that may benefit the family. As referenced by Feliciano et al. (2016), educators can also account for culture by providing education about the diversity at the school. This can be achieved by creating an environment where both teachers and students learn about cultures represented among the student population. Larocquem et al. (2011) stated that family involvement may include visiting their children's class, being involved with a parent teacher organization, attending school activities, speaking to the child's class, and volunteering at school events. It is also important for families to be involved with the child's school assignments, especially by holding them accountable for completion and discussion of the work assigned. A study done by Nistler and Maiers (2000), found that although different barriers for families may inhibit participation, families reported that they would want to participate nonetheless. Larocque et al. (2011) suggest that teachers need to find out what values and expectations are held for the child, which should be done by involving parents in the decision-making process. According to sociologist
Annette Lareau, differences in
parenting styles can affect a child's future achievement. In her book
Unequal Childhoods, she argues that there are two main types of parenting: concerted cultivation and the achievement of natural growth. •
Concerted cultivation is usually practiced by middle-class parents, regardless of their race. These parents are more likely to be involved in their children's education, encourage their children's participation in extracurricular activities or sports teams, and to teach their children how to successfully communicate with authority figures. These communication skills give children a form of social capital that help them communicate their needs and negotiate with adults throughout their life. • The achievement of natural growth is generally practiced by poor and working-class families. These parents generally do not play as large a role in their children's education, their children are less likely to participate in extracurriculars or sports teams, and they usually do not teach their children the communication skills that middle- and upper-class children have. Instead, these parents are more concerned that their children obey authority figures and have respect for authority, which are two characteristics that are important to have in order to succeed in working-class jobs. The parenting practices that a child is raised with influences their future educational achievement. However, parenting styles are heavily influenced by the parents' and family's social, economic, and physical circumstances. In particular, immigration status (if applicable), education level, incomes, and occupations influence the degree of parental involvement their children's academic achievement. These factors directly determine the access of the parents to time and resources to dedicate to their children's development. These factors also indirectly determine the home environment and parents' educational expectations of their children. For example, children from poor families have lower academic performance in kindergarten than children from middle to upper-class backgrounds, but children from poor families who had cognitively stimulating materials in the home demonstrated higher rates of academic achievement in kindergarten. Additionally, parents of children living in poverty are less likely to have cognitively stimulating materials in the home for their children and are less likely to be involved in their child's school. The quality of language that the student uses is affected by family's socioeconomic backgrounds, which is another factor in the academic achievement gap.
Preschool education Additionally, poor and minority students have disproportionately less access to high-quality early childhood education, which has been shown to have a strong impact on early learning and development. One study found that although black children are more likely to attend preschool than white children, they may experience lower-quality care. The same study also found that Hispanic children in the U.S. are much less likely to attend preschool than white children. Another study conducted in Illinois in 2010 found that only one in three Latino parents could find a preschool slot for his or her child, compared to almost two thirds of other families. Finally, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), families with modest incomes (less than $60,000) have the least access to preschool education. Research suggests that dramatic increases in both enrollment and quality of prekindergarten programs would help to alleviate the school readiness gap and ensure that low-income and minority children begin school on even footing with their peers. Sociologist Laura Perry found what she calls 'Student Socioeconomic Status' has the third strongest influence on educational outcomes in the United States out of nations within this study and it ranked sixth in influence of equity differences among schools. These families are more susceptible to
multidimensional poverty, meaning the three dimensions of poverty, health, education, and standard of living are interconnected to give an overall assessment of a nations poverty. Some researchers, such as Katherine Paschall, argue that family income plays more of a factor in the academic achievement gap than race/ethnicity. However, other studies find that the racial gaps persists between families of different race and ethnicity that have similar incomes. When comparing white students from families with incomes below $10,000 they had a mean SAT test score that was 61 points higher than African American students whose families had incomes between $80,000 and $100,000. This means that there are more contributing factors than just economic status. Conservative African American scholars such as
Thomas Sowell observe that while SAT scores are lower for students with less parental education and income, Asian Americans who took the SAT with incomes below $10,000 score 482 in math in 1995, comparable to whites earning $30–40,000 and higher and blacks over $70,000. Similarly, a later study reveals that for the 2003 college bound cohort, Black test-takers with more than $100,000 in family income have mean SAT math and verbal scores of 490 and 495 respectively, and this is comparable with the scores of the White test-takers with $20,000–$25,000 in family income (493 and 495). Test scores in middle-income black communities, such as
Charles County and
Prince George's County, are still not comparable to those in non-black suburbs. Economic factors were identified as lack of online course access (McCoy, 2012) and online course attrition which indicated before (Liu et al., 2007). Based on the National Center for Educational Statistic (2015), about half of African American male students grew up in single-parent households. They are associated with higher incidences of poverty, which leads to poorer educational outcomes (Child Trends Databank, 2015). Low-income households tend to have fewer home computers and less access to the Internet (Zickuhr & Smith, 2012).
Cultural differences Some experts believe that cultural factors contribute to the racial achievement gap. Students from minority cultures face language barriers, differences in cultural norms in interactions, learning styles, varying levels of receptiveness of their culture to white American culture, and varying levels of acceptance of the white American culture by the students. In particular, it has been found that minority students from cultures with views that generally do not align with the mainstream cultural views have a harder time in school. Furthermore, views of the value of education differ by minority groups as well as members within each group. Both Hispanic and African-American youths often receive mixed messages about the importance of education, and often end up performing below their academic potential.
Online education Achievement gaps between African American students and White students in online classes tend to be greater than regular class. Expanding from 14% in 1995 to 22% in 2015 (National Center for Education Statistics, 2016). Possible causes include differences in socio-economic status (Palmer et al., 2013), academic performance differences (Osborne, 2001), technology inaccessibility (Fairlie, 2012), lack of online technical support (Rovai & Gallien, 2005), and anxiety towards racial stereotyping (Osborne, 2001). However, counselors and teachers usually promote continuing on to college. This message conflicts with the one being sent to Hispanic students by their families and can negatively affect the motivation of Hispanic students, as evidenced by the fact that Latinos have the lowest college attendance rates of any racial/ethnic group. Disadvantages in a child's early life can cultivate into achievement gaps in their education. Poverty, coupled with the environment they are raised in, can lead to shortcomings in educational achievement. Despite strong standards and beliefs in education, Hispanic children consistently perform poorly, reflected by a low average of math and reading scores, as compared to other groups except African American. Hispanic and African American children have been shown to be more likely to be raised in poverty, with 33% of Hispanic families living below the
economic poverty level, compared to African American (39%), Asian (14%) and White (13%) counterparts. Both recent immigrants and the children of immigrants are faced with language barriers and other migration obstacles. A study explored the unique situation and stressors recent Latin American immigrants face. Hispanic students showed lower academic achievement, more absences, and more life stressors than their counterparts. In 2014–2015, 77.8% of Hispanic children were
English Language learners. This can be problematic because children may not have parents who speak English at home to help with language acquisition. Immigration struggles can be used as a motivator for students. Immigrant parents appeal to their children and hold high expectations because of the "gift" they are bestowing on them. They immigrated and sacrificed their lives so their children can succeed, and this framework is salient in encouraging children to pursue their education. Parents use their struggles and occupation to encourage a better life.
Parental involvement has been shown to increase educational success and attainment for students. For example, parental involvement in elementary school has been shown to lower high school dropout rates and improved on time completion of high school. A common misconception is that Latino parents don't hold their children's education in high regards (Valencia, 2002), but this has been debunked. Parents show their values in education by holding high academic expectations and giving "consejos" or advice. In 2012, 97% of families reported teaching their children letters, words or numbers. Hart and Risley calculated a "30 million word gap" between children of high school dropouts and those of professionals who are college educated. The differences are qualitative as well as quantitative, with differences in "unique" words, complexity, and "conversational turns." However, poverty often acts as a confounding factor and differences that are assumed to arise from racial/cultural factors may be socioeconomically driven, as can be seen by a study where immigrant-origin Black undergraduates outperformed U.S.-origin Black undergraduates until socioeconomic status was taken into account. Many children who are poor, regardless of race, come from homes that lack stability, continuity of care, adequate nutrition, and medical care creating a level of environmental stress that can affect the young child's development. As a result, these children enter school with decreased word knowledge that can affect their language skills, influence their experience with books, and create different perceptions and expectations in the classroom context. Studies show that when students have parental assistance with homework, they perform better in school. This is a problem for many minority students due to the large number of single-parent households (67% of African-American children are in a single-parent household) and the increase in non-English speaking parents. Students from single-parent homes often find it difficult to find time to receive help from their parent. Similarly, some Hispanic students have difficulty getting help with their homework because there is not an English speaker at home to offer assistance. This causes problems for black students who want to pursue higher levels of education, forcing some to hide their study or homework habits from their peers and perform below their academic potential. By not trying to do well in school, such students engage in a rejection of the
achievement ideology – that is, the idea that working hard and studying long hours will pay off for students in the form of higher wages or upward social mobility.
Asian American cultural factors Asian American students are more likely to view education as a means to
social mobility and
career advancement. It may also provide a means to overcome discrimination as well as language barriers. This notion comes from cultural expectations and parental expectations of their children, which are rooted in the cultural belief that education and hard work is the key to educational and eventually occupational attainment. Many Asian Americans immigrated to the United States voluntarily, in search for better opportunities. This immigration status comes into play when assessing the cultural views of Asian Americans since attitudes of more recent immigration are associated with optimistic views about the correlation between hard work and success. Obstacles such as language barriers and acceptance of white American culture are more easily overcome by voluntary immigrants since their expectations of attaining better opportunities in the United States influence their interactions and experiences. Students that identify as Asian American believe that having a good education would also help them speak out against racism based on the model-minority stereotype.
Factors specific to refugees Part of the racial achievement gap can be attributed to the experience of the refugee population in the United States. Refugee groups in particular face obstacles such as cultural and language barriers and discrimination, in addition to migration-related stresses. These factors affect how successfully refugee children can assimilate to and succeed in the United States. Furthermore, it has been shown that immigrant children from politically unstable countries do not perform as well as immigrant children from politically stable countries.
Genetic factors Scientific consensus tells us that there is no genetic component behind differences in academic achievement between racial groups. However,
pseudoscientific claims that certain racial groups are intellectually superior and others inferior continue to circulate. A recent example is Herrnstein and Murray's 1994 book
The Bell Curve, which controversially claimed that
variation in average levels of intelligence (IQ) between racial groups are genetic in origin, and that this may explain some portion of the racial disparities in achievement. The book has been described by many academics as a restatement of previously debunked "
scientific racism", and was condemned by both literary reviewers and academics within related fields. The consensus view among scientists is that there is no difference in inherent cognitive ability between different races, and that environment is at the root of the achievement gap. == Implications ==