Eric Grodsky - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Eric Grodsky
Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education
Teaching and Teacher Education
Teacher collaboration is a key factor in improving instructional quality and promoting student ac... more Teacher collaboration is a key factor in improving instructional quality and promoting student achievement. Though research attests to the importance of school contextual elements for the work of teachers, few studies investigate how these factors interact to enable or constrain collaboration. This study examines teacher perspectives on collaborative practices by analyzing observations and interviews of teachers and other staff at eight Wisconsin elementary schools. It finds that structures for collaboration shape teacher participation in collaborative practices. The authors distinguish among three structures of collaboration-requisite, optional, and informaland explore how relational trust among teachers and between teachers and their administrators and colleagues affects collaboration. They find that teachers who attested to the presence of relational trust within their schools collaborated with colleagues, regardless of formalized times to do so. Conversely, teachers who described a lack of relational trust opted against collaborating with grade-level colleagues, despite, in some instances, having access to collaborative planning time. Instructional approaches influenced collaborative structures and relational trust, as some teaching formats fostered contact between practitioners while others separated teachers. The study concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for extant and future research regarding collaboration in context.
Wisconsin Center for Education Research, Aug 1, 2018
When planning for college, students face a range of constrained choices governed in part by varia... more When planning for college, students face a range of constrained choices governed in part by variation among institutions. What are the economic consequences of those decisions and constraints during and after college? We know borrowing patterns vary by institutional sector, yet colleges within a sector vary considerably by admission and graduation rates, returns to degrees, and costs for students. Using data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students and Baccalaureate and Beyond studies, we evaluate undergraduate student loan debt and labor market outcomes differentiated by institutional sector and competitiveness. First, we corroborate previous research finding that recent growth in educational debt is mainly confined to the top fifth of borrowers. Second, we find that the sector and selectivity of institutions predict both graduation rates and higher borrowing. In-state public institutions provide a haven from high debt relative to public out-of-state and less competitive private colleges. Finally, we find this differential risk of exposure to high borrowing is what matters for labor market outcomes of graduates from less-competitive institutions. Once these students enter the top fifth of borrowing, early labor market experiences have more influence than what kind of college students attend.
Using data from the High School and Beyond cohort of high school sophomores, PRC trainee Jamie M.... more Using data from the High School and Beyond cohort of high school sophomores, PRC trainee Jamie M. Carroll, PRC faculty research associate Chandra Muller, and colleagues show that taking advanced courses in high school appears to improve health 30 years later. To improve our population’s health, policymakers could encourage more access to advanced coursework in high school as well as pedagogical strategies that empower independent thinking.
Sociology of Education, 2021
We ask whether patterns of racial ethnic and socioeconomic stratification in educational attainme... more We ask whether patterns of racial ethnic and socioeconomic stratification in educational attainment are amplified or attenuated when we take a longer view of educational careers. We propose a model of staged advantage to understand how educational inequalities evolve over the life course. Distinct from cumulative advantage, staged advantage asserts that inequalities in education ebb and flow over the life course as the population at risk of making each educational transition changes along with the constraints they confront in seeking more education. Results based on data from the 2014 follow up of the sophomore cohort of High School and Beyond offer partial support for our hypotheses. The educational attainment process was far from over for our respondents as they aged through their 30s and 40s: More than 6 of 10 continued their formal training during this period, and 4 of 10 earned an additional credential. Patterns of educational stratification at midlife became more pronounced in...
Social Forces, 2017
Educational gradients in health status, morbidity, and mortality are well established, but which ... more Educational gradients in health status, morbidity, and mortality are well established, but which aspects of schooling produce those gradients is only partially understood. We draw on newly available data from the midlife follow-up of the High School and Beyond sophomore cohort to analyze the relationship between students' level of coursework in high school and their long-term health outcomes. We additionally evaluate the mediating roles of skill development, postsecondary attendance and degree attainment, and occupational characteristics. We find that students who took a medium-to high-level course of study in high school have better self-reported health and physical functioning in midlife, even net of family background, adolescent health, baseline skills, and school characteristics. The association partially operates through pathways into postsecondary education. Our findings have implications for both educational policy and research on the educational gradient in health. Individuals with more education have longer life expectancy and report better health than those with less education (Montez, Hummer, and Hayward 2012; Ross and Wu 1995). Education enhances health and longevity, in part because it supports the development of cognitive and noncognitive skills, such as literacy, problem solving, and a personal sense of control and grants individuals access to occupations with greater earnings and fewer hazards of illness or injury (Fletcher 2012; Kaestner and Callison 2011; Mirowsky and Ross 2007; Moore and Hayward 1990). However, students have diverse experiences within educational institutions, including what they learn and how they learn it. In high school, students' course-taking patterns shape their classroom experiences (Oakes 1985), the cognitive and noncognitive skills they acquire in school (Carbonaro 2005; Gamoran 1992), the chances For permissions, please:
Models of Secondary Education and Social Inequality
Social Science Research, 2007
Real and Imagined Barriers to College Entry: Perceptions of Cost Patterns of postsecondary attend... more Real and Imagined Barriers to College Entry: Perceptions of Cost Patterns of postsecondary attendance in the United States continue to be stratified by socioeconomic background and race/ethnicity. We suggest that inequalities in knowledge of the costs of going to college contribute to persistent patterns of stratification. We hypothesize that disadvantaged parents who believe their child will attend college are less certain of the costs of college attendance.
School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 2003
Professional development is an opportunity to improve teachers’ instructional strategies and incr... more Professional development is an opportunity to improve teachers’ instructional strategies and increase the students’ achievement for school continual improvement. However, the short term courses and limited collaboration were ineffective in helping teachers to master their instructional strategies. Thus, teachers field competency problem affected the school continual improvement. Most of the empirical research in educational field in Malaysia focused on professional learning communities. The purpose of this research is to determine the relationship between professional development and school continual improvement. This survey research focused on two suburban national secondary schools which have the same characteristics in Subis. 97 respondents were selected randomly to answer the PDSCI instrument. The results showed that professional development and continual improvement had medium and positive significant relationship (r=.426, p<.001). The coefficient of determination of professional development standards was 18.14% shared variance. School continual improvement factors help to explain 18.14% of the variance in respondents’ scores on the professional development standards. The null hypothesis was rejected and alternative hypothesis was accepted. The findings highlighted that principals should put more effort on the relationship between learning communities standard and school climate, teacher improvement and principal leadership factors. Besides, professional development design and data driven standards should match the school climate. It also serves as a valuable information for stakeholders to improve the professional development program to achieve school continual improvement goal.
Sociology of Education, 2019
Recent efforts to understand aggregate student loan debt have shifted the focus away from undergr... more Recent efforts to understand aggregate student loan debt have shifted the focus away from undergraduate borrowing and toward dramatically rising debt among graduate and professional students. We suggest educational debt plays a key role in social stratification by either deterring bachelor’s degree holders from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds from pursuing lucrative careers through advanced degree programs or imposing a high cost for entry. We speculate that the ongoing personal financing of advanced degrees, changes to funding in higher education, and increasing returns to and demand for postbaccalaureate degrees have created a perfect storm for those seeking degrees beyond college. We find that aggregate increases in borrowing among advanced degree students between 1996 and 2016 can be explained in part by increasing enrollment rates, particularly among master’s degree students, and large, secular increases in graduate and professional students’ undergraduate and gr...
Using eighteen years of data from more than 1,300 four-year colleges and universities in the Unit... more Using eighteen years of data from more than 1,300 four-year colleges and universities in the United States, we investigate the extent to which institutional characteristics and contextual factors influence the propensity of colleges to indicate that they consider race/ethnicity in their admissions decisions. Consideration of race/ethnicity in admissions declined sharply after the mid-1990s, especially at public institutions. Rather than being shaped by specific historical and political contexts, consideration of race/ethnicity in admissions appears to be a widely institutionalized practice in higher education that has been tempered by changes in the policy environment over time.
The authors are grateful to Katherine Magnuson for comments on an earlier draft. This work is sup... more The authors are grateful to Katherine Magnuson for comments on an earlier draft. This work is supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Institute for Education Sciences to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (R372A 150031). Views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of IES or DPI. Any opinions, findings, or conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies, WCER, or cooperating institutions.
Recent efforts to understand aggregate student loan debt have shifted the focus away from undergr... more Recent efforts to understand aggregate student loan debt have shifted the focus away from undergraduate borrowing and toward dramatically rising debt among graduate and professional students. We suggest educational debt plays a key role in social stratification by deterring bachelor’s degree holders from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds from pursuing lucrative careers through advanced degree programs. We speculate that the ongoing personal financing of advanced degrees, changes to funding in higher education, and increasing returns to and demand for post-baccalaureate degrees have created a perfect storm for those seeking degrees beyond college. We find that aggregate increases in borrowing among advanced degree students between 1996 and 2016 can be explained in part by increasing enrollment rates, particularly among master’s degree students, and large, secular increases in graduate and professional students’ undergraduate and graduate borrowing. In contrast to undergr...
We analyze how Proposition 209 changed the percentage of matriculating students who are African A... more We analyze how Proposition 209 changed the percentage of matriculating students who are African American or Latino at each public, private non-profit and proprietary four-year and two-year college in the state of California. We find that Proposition 209 led to a decline in African American enrollment at public four-year colleges and an increase in African American enrollment at private non-profit and proprietary four-year colleges. Hispanic enrollment at public four-year colleges was essentially unchanged, but growth in Hispanic enrollments after 209 was accommodate by private non-profit and proprietary four-year colleges as well as public community colleges. These marginal shifts mask substantial churning in the individual colleges under-represented minority students attend over time, as both groups experienced a decline in the quality of the four-year public colleges they attend.
Community colleges serve as the point of entry to higher education for many Americans, but enroll... more Community colleges serve as the point of entry to higher education for many Americans, but enrollees exhibit high rates of non-completion. A central debate in the sociological research on community colleges concerns whether these institutions enhance opportunity by improving educational access or constrain opportunity by hindering students from achieving their educational aspirations. This chapter lays out the history of community colleges, describes relevant sociological theories, and reviews key developments in research, emphasizing research on the potentially democratizing and diversionary effects of community colleges. Finally, we discuss how sociology can inform the evolving policy discussion over the role community colleges play in education and social mobility.
http://aer.sagepub.com/content/49/6/1048 The online version of this article can be found at: DOI:... more http://aer.sagepub.com/content/49/6/1048 The online version of this article can be found at: DOI: 10.3102/0002831211435229 2012 49: 1048 originally published online 24 February 2012 Am Educ Res J Catherine Riegle-Crumb, Barbara King, Eric Grodsky and Chandra Muller Majors Over Time College Achievement Fails to Explain Gender Inequality in Entry Into STEM The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same? Prior
Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education
Teaching and Teacher Education
Teacher collaboration is a key factor in improving instructional quality and promoting student ac... more Teacher collaboration is a key factor in improving instructional quality and promoting student achievement. Though research attests to the importance of school contextual elements for the work of teachers, few studies investigate how these factors interact to enable or constrain collaboration. This study examines teacher perspectives on collaborative practices by analyzing observations and interviews of teachers and other staff at eight Wisconsin elementary schools. It finds that structures for collaboration shape teacher participation in collaborative practices. The authors distinguish among three structures of collaboration-requisite, optional, and informaland explore how relational trust among teachers and between teachers and their administrators and colleagues affects collaboration. They find that teachers who attested to the presence of relational trust within their schools collaborated with colleagues, regardless of formalized times to do so. Conversely, teachers who described a lack of relational trust opted against collaborating with grade-level colleagues, despite, in some instances, having access to collaborative planning time. Instructional approaches influenced collaborative structures and relational trust, as some teaching formats fostered contact between practitioners while others separated teachers. The study concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for extant and future research regarding collaboration in context.
Wisconsin Center for Education Research, Aug 1, 2018
When planning for college, students face a range of constrained choices governed in part by varia... more When planning for college, students face a range of constrained choices governed in part by variation among institutions. What are the economic consequences of those decisions and constraints during and after college? We know borrowing patterns vary by institutional sector, yet colleges within a sector vary considerably by admission and graduation rates, returns to degrees, and costs for students. Using data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students and Baccalaureate and Beyond studies, we evaluate undergraduate student loan debt and labor market outcomes differentiated by institutional sector and competitiveness. First, we corroborate previous research finding that recent growth in educational debt is mainly confined to the top fifth of borrowers. Second, we find that the sector and selectivity of institutions predict both graduation rates and higher borrowing. In-state public institutions provide a haven from high debt relative to public out-of-state and less competitive private colleges. Finally, we find this differential risk of exposure to high borrowing is what matters for labor market outcomes of graduates from less-competitive institutions. Once these students enter the top fifth of borrowing, early labor market experiences have more influence than what kind of college students attend.
Using data from the High School and Beyond cohort of high school sophomores, PRC trainee Jamie M.... more Using data from the High School and Beyond cohort of high school sophomores, PRC trainee Jamie M. Carroll, PRC faculty research associate Chandra Muller, and colleagues show that taking advanced courses in high school appears to improve health 30 years later. To improve our population’s health, policymakers could encourage more access to advanced coursework in high school as well as pedagogical strategies that empower independent thinking.
Sociology of Education, 2021
We ask whether patterns of racial ethnic and socioeconomic stratification in educational attainme... more We ask whether patterns of racial ethnic and socioeconomic stratification in educational attainment are amplified or attenuated when we take a longer view of educational careers. We propose a model of staged advantage to understand how educational inequalities evolve over the life course. Distinct from cumulative advantage, staged advantage asserts that inequalities in education ebb and flow over the life course as the population at risk of making each educational transition changes along with the constraints they confront in seeking more education. Results based on data from the 2014 follow up of the sophomore cohort of High School and Beyond offer partial support for our hypotheses. The educational attainment process was far from over for our respondents as they aged through their 30s and 40s: More than 6 of 10 continued their formal training during this period, and 4 of 10 earned an additional credential. Patterns of educational stratification at midlife became more pronounced in...
Social Forces, 2017
Educational gradients in health status, morbidity, and mortality are well established, but which ... more Educational gradients in health status, morbidity, and mortality are well established, but which aspects of schooling produce those gradients is only partially understood. We draw on newly available data from the midlife follow-up of the High School and Beyond sophomore cohort to analyze the relationship between students' level of coursework in high school and their long-term health outcomes. We additionally evaluate the mediating roles of skill development, postsecondary attendance and degree attainment, and occupational characteristics. We find that students who took a medium-to high-level course of study in high school have better self-reported health and physical functioning in midlife, even net of family background, adolescent health, baseline skills, and school characteristics. The association partially operates through pathways into postsecondary education. Our findings have implications for both educational policy and research on the educational gradient in health. Individuals with more education have longer life expectancy and report better health than those with less education (Montez, Hummer, and Hayward 2012; Ross and Wu 1995). Education enhances health and longevity, in part because it supports the development of cognitive and noncognitive skills, such as literacy, problem solving, and a personal sense of control and grants individuals access to occupations with greater earnings and fewer hazards of illness or injury (Fletcher 2012; Kaestner and Callison 2011; Mirowsky and Ross 2007; Moore and Hayward 1990). However, students have diverse experiences within educational institutions, including what they learn and how they learn it. In high school, students' course-taking patterns shape their classroom experiences (Oakes 1985), the cognitive and noncognitive skills they acquire in school (Carbonaro 2005; Gamoran 1992), the chances For permissions, please:
Models of Secondary Education and Social Inequality
Social Science Research, 2007
Real and Imagined Barriers to College Entry: Perceptions of Cost Patterns of postsecondary attend... more Real and Imagined Barriers to College Entry: Perceptions of Cost Patterns of postsecondary attendance in the United States continue to be stratified by socioeconomic background and race/ethnicity. We suggest that inequalities in knowledge of the costs of going to college contribute to persistent patterns of stratification. We hypothesize that disadvantaged parents who believe their child will attend college are less certain of the costs of college attendance.
School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 2003
Professional development is an opportunity to improve teachers’ instructional strategies and incr... more Professional development is an opportunity to improve teachers’ instructional strategies and increase the students’ achievement for school continual improvement. However, the short term courses and limited collaboration were ineffective in helping teachers to master their instructional strategies. Thus, teachers field competency problem affected the school continual improvement. Most of the empirical research in educational field in Malaysia focused on professional learning communities. The purpose of this research is to determine the relationship between professional development and school continual improvement. This survey research focused on two suburban national secondary schools which have the same characteristics in Subis. 97 respondents were selected randomly to answer the PDSCI instrument. The results showed that professional development and continual improvement had medium and positive significant relationship (r=.426, p<.001). The coefficient of determination of professional development standards was 18.14% shared variance. School continual improvement factors help to explain 18.14% of the variance in respondents’ scores on the professional development standards. The null hypothesis was rejected and alternative hypothesis was accepted. The findings highlighted that principals should put more effort on the relationship between learning communities standard and school climate, teacher improvement and principal leadership factors. Besides, professional development design and data driven standards should match the school climate. It also serves as a valuable information for stakeholders to improve the professional development program to achieve school continual improvement goal.
Sociology of Education, 2019
Recent efforts to understand aggregate student loan debt have shifted the focus away from undergr... more Recent efforts to understand aggregate student loan debt have shifted the focus away from undergraduate borrowing and toward dramatically rising debt among graduate and professional students. We suggest educational debt plays a key role in social stratification by either deterring bachelor’s degree holders from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds from pursuing lucrative careers through advanced degree programs or imposing a high cost for entry. We speculate that the ongoing personal financing of advanced degrees, changes to funding in higher education, and increasing returns to and demand for postbaccalaureate degrees have created a perfect storm for those seeking degrees beyond college. We find that aggregate increases in borrowing among advanced degree students between 1996 and 2016 can be explained in part by increasing enrollment rates, particularly among master’s degree students, and large, secular increases in graduate and professional students’ undergraduate and gr...
Using eighteen years of data from more than 1,300 four-year colleges and universities in the Unit... more Using eighteen years of data from more than 1,300 four-year colleges and universities in the United States, we investigate the extent to which institutional characteristics and contextual factors influence the propensity of colleges to indicate that they consider race/ethnicity in their admissions decisions. Consideration of race/ethnicity in admissions declined sharply after the mid-1990s, especially at public institutions. Rather than being shaped by specific historical and political contexts, consideration of race/ethnicity in admissions appears to be a widely institutionalized practice in higher education that has been tempered by changes in the policy environment over time.
The authors are grateful to Katherine Magnuson for comments on an earlier draft. This work is sup... more The authors are grateful to Katherine Magnuson for comments on an earlier draft. This work is supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Institute for Education Sciences to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (R372A 150031). Views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of IES or DPI. Any opinions, findings, or conclusions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding agencies, WCER, or cooperating institutions.
Recent efforts to understand aggregate student loan debt have shifted the focus away from undergr... more Recent efforts to understand aggregate student loan debt have shifted the focus away from undergraduate borrowing and toward dramatically rising debt among graduate and professional students. We suggest educational debt plays a key role in social stratification by deterring bachelor’s degree holders from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds from pursuing lucrative careers through advanced degree programs. We speculate that the ongoing personal financing of advanced degrees, changes to funding in higher education, and increasing returns to and demand for post-baccalaureate degrees have created a perfect storm for those seeking degrees beyond college. We find that aggregate increases in borrowing among advanced degree students between 1996 and 2016 can be explained in part by increasing enrollment rates, particularly among master’s degree students, and large, secular increases in graduate and professional students’ undergraduate and graduate borrowing. In contrast to undergr...
We analyze how Proposition 209 changed the percentage of matriculating students who are African A... more We analyze how Proposition 209 changed the percentage of matriculating students who are African American or Latino at each public, private non-profit and proprietary four-year and two-year college in the state of California. We find that Proposition 209 led to a decline in African American enrollment at public four-year colleges and an increase in African American enrollment at private non-profit and proprietary four-year colleges. Hispanic enrollment at public four-year colleges was essentially unchanged, but growth in Hispanic enrollments after 209 was accommodate by private non-profit and proprietary four-year colleges as well as public community colleges. These marginal shifts mask substantial churning in the individual colleges under-represented minority students attend over time, as both groups experienced a decline in the quality of the four-year public colleges they attend.
Community colleges serve as the point of entry to higher education for many Americans, but enroll... more Community colleges serve as the point of entry to higher education for many Americans, but enrollees exhibit high rates of non-completion. A central debate in the sociological research on community colleges concerns whether these institutions enhance opportunity by improving educational access or constrain opportunity by hindering students from achieving their educational aspirations. This chapter lays out the history of community colleges, describes relevant sociological theories, and reviews key developments in research, emphasizing research on the potentially democratizing and diversionary effects of community colleges. Finally, we discuss how sociology can inform the evolving policy discussion over the role community colleges play in education and social mobility.
http://aer.sagepub.com/content/49/6/1048 The online version of this article can be found at: DOI:... more http://aer.sagepub.com/content/49/6/1048 The online version of this article can be found at: DOI: 10.3102/0002831211435229 2012 49: 1048 originally published online 24 February 2012 Am Educ Res J Catherine Riegle-Crumb, Barbara King, Eric Grodsky and Chandra Muller Majors Over Time College Achievement Fails to Explain Gender Inequality in Entry Into STEM The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same? Prior