Educational Inequalities (class; race; gender etc) Research Papers (original) (raw)

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- Computer Science, Computer Graphics, Human Computer Interaction, Philosophy

This article speaks to the fragmentary information available about the 12 plaintiffs other than Oliver L. Brown who also were participants in the Brown v. Board of Education case. In particular, it highlights the experiences of Lucinda Todd, the first plaintiff in the case. It uses this case in a discussion of the importance of illuminating the experiences of African Americans in U.S. history. It underlines the significance of oral narrative as a method to expand historical scholarship.

- by Alicia Moore and +1
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- Race and Racism, Educational Inequalities (class; race; gender etc), Critical Race Theory, Race and Ethnicity

In this article we analyse intercultural communication management in student intcraction in a culturally and linguistically diverse second year primary school classroom. In order to do so, and trying to overcome culturalist reductionism, we explore how three dimensions of interaction, linguistic, psychosocial and social, are linked. So as to observe how this current socio-educational order rnight be altered, we decided to conduct research in the classroom by introducing changes to attenuate the asymmetries and differences in values in conversational dynamics. The analysis of cominunicative practices in the classroom, similarly to that of intercultural situations among adults, indicates that from an early age, in situations where there are large social differences, communicative differences can be (re)constructed and used as a tools to reinforce asymmetries as well as the status quo, thereby relegating foreign workers and their descendants to an underprivileged social position.
Keywords: intcrcultural communication, interaction analysis, critica1 discourse analysis, asyminetry and cooperation, immigration, education.

"Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der temporalen Veränderung der sozialen
Mobilität in der Schweiz. Im Rahmen deskriptiver Kohortenanalysen wird der Effekt der
sozialen Herkunft (Bildung und Klasse) auf das Erreichen von Bildungsabschlüssen und
Klassenpositionen mittels multinomialer Logit-Modelle analysiert. Es zeigt sich, dass der
Einfluss der Herkunft bei Betrachtung der Anpassungsgüte der Modelle über die Kohortenfolge
tendenziell abgenommen hat, jedoch die Discrete Change Effects der einzelnen
Herkunftsvariablen in der zentralen Tendenz konstant geblieben sind. Als Ausnahme hierfür
kann einzig die Abnahme des elterlichen Einflusses auf die Kategorie keine nachobligatorische
Bildung – wohl eine Folge der Bildungsexpansion – sowie die Zunahme der
Wirkung eines hohen Bildungsabschlusses der Eltern auf den Abschluss einer höheren
Berufsbildung oder einer Hochschulbildung über die Kohortenfolge genannt werden."

School failure is substantive in Spain. The percentage of students that do not achieve the compulsory education diploma is around 20%. Students who "fail" cannot continue to postcompulsory education and, sooner or later, have to leave formal education. School failure is usually higher for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. This article explores the evolution of Inequality of Educational Opportunities (IEO) in compulsory education from the seventies in Spain. Using logit models of estimation to control for socio-demographic factors that may interfere with IEO dynamic, it shows that IEO at this level of education ran parallel with school failure: specifically, it decreased until the late nineties and increased afterwards. In order to explain this (unexpected) increase, we have tested the impact of a Law, known as LOGSE, which was implemented in Spain at the end of the nineties. We provide evidence that this Law, although egalitarian in spirit, in practice could have worked against students from lower socio-economic backgrounds continuing in education; thereby increasing IEO at this transition point.

- by Mellizosoto Fernandez and +1
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- Education, Educational Inequalities (class; race; gender etc), Gender, Dropout Prevention

In this essay I examine the racial achievement gap in American education in terms of an impaired psychosocial developmental process. I argue that the well-documented academic underperformance of certain minority groups may stem from the unfavorable resolution of a key developmental crisis in constituent members’ early scholastic experience. I go on to suggest that individual educators can play an important role in eliminating the achievement gap by changing the way they teach in their own classrooms. In part, they may do so by adopting a "transcultural" pedagogy or teaching style, according to which both teachers and their minority students develop (at minimum) transcultural proficiencies and (at maximum) transcultural identities, as a promising way to achieve two important ends. First, the fostering of an academically-industrious self-concept in members of historically underachieving minority groups and hence, second, the closing of the achievement gap "from the bottom up"—one classroom at a time.

- by Brian D . Earp
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- Sociology, Economic Sociology, Political Sociology, Social Theory

This paper explores the interpretations a sample of African American educators in a predominantly white school system make of their roles and responsibilities as teachers of African American students in schools in which African American student achievement is significantly lower than that of their non-African American counterparts. Our interest in and concern about African American educators’ views of their roles arose during our involvement with a research and development effort undertaken to improve the academic achievement of African American students.

While student parents now represent a significant proportion of the higher education population in England, this group has been given limited consideration in policy circles. Using a social constructivist and feminist theoretical framework, this paper draws on a research project investigating the role of higher education policies in supporting student parents in England. It focuses on findings from 40 interviews conducted with student parents enrolled on university programmes. It shows that, in the context of the default construction of the university student as carefree, student parents often describe their experience of navigating academia as a struggle, in which time-related, financial, health and emotional problems prevail. However, the stories they tell also emphasise the benefits associated with their dual status. By doing so, they resist the discourse of deficit typically applied to ‘non traditional’ students and produce a counter-discourse that disturbs the long-lived binary opposition between care and academia.

This article delineates how race has been undertheorized in research on the educational experiences and outcomes of Blacks. The authors identify two dominant traditions by which researchers have invoked race (i.e., as culture and as a variable) and outline their conceptual limitations. They analyze how these traditions mask the heterogeneity of the Black experience, underanalyze institutionalized productions of race and racial discrimination, and confound causes and effects in estimating when and how race is "significant." The authors acknowledge the contributions of more recent scholarship and discuss how future studies of Black achievement might develop more sophisticated conceptualizations of race to inform more rigorous methodological examinations of how, when, and why Black students perform in school as they do.

- by Carla O'Connor and +2
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- Educational Inequalities (class; race; gender etc), Critical Race Theory, Race and Ethnicity
- by Audrey Osler
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- Education, Sociology of Education, Democratic Education, Human Rights

Over the last decades, women’s participation in the labour market has significantly increased. However, women are often paid less than men and are over-represented in part-time and informal jobs, facing gender barriers in their careers. A number of researchers have emphasized the flexible role of women in the labor market, while attempting to analyse the gender discrimination and sexist prejudices in the business environment through the notion of “glass ceiling”. “Glass Ceiling” is a term used to describe the “invisible” barriers that women face within their workplace. In this article, I attempt to highlight, through my ethnographic example in a door to door marketing company in Thessaloniki (Greece), the relationship between women and entrepreneurship, as well as the way in which the phenomenon of “glass ceiling” exists and affects women’s work. My research is based on the methods of participant observation, self-observation, reflexivity, formal and informal interviews, as well as the use of audiovisual material.

This article analyzes U.S. university presidents' public responses to the Trump administration's first travel ban in January 2017. Within these responses, most presidents voiced their support for international students, staff, and faculty. However, it remains necessary to consider the discursive frames through which this support is articulated. I found that support for international members of the campus community was largely expressed in ways that implicitly naturalized the regulation of immigration according to racialized assessments of human value. This article considers the role of universities in reproducing and/or interrupting the logics and practices of white supremacy, racial capitalism, and nationalism, and the ethical limits of responses to the ban that are framed through discourses of conditional inclusion and perceived contributions to the campus and country.

In exploring the quality of schools’ social system, this study provides insight into in which types of schools students may encounter barriers in developing supportive teacher-student relationships because of teachers exposing low levels of trust in students. Student culture and teachability perceptions are assessed as incentives for teachers’ perceptions of students’ trustworthiness. Information was gathered from 2.104 teachers across a representative sample of 84 secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium). A measure for trust in students was derived from the trust scales developed by Hoy and Tschannen-Moran. Multilevel analyses reveal that teacher perceptions of students’ teachability strongly predict teacher trust. This underscores the importance of teacher perceptions of students’ ability to meet the expectations imposed on them with regard to the formation of trust. Additionally, we show that teacher trust is affected by the organizational school context, although the academic orientation of the student culture plays no role.

- by Dimitri Van Maele and +1
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- Sociology of Education, Organizational Theory, Trust, Educational Research

This article examines the transition to adulthood among 1.5-generation undocumented Latino young adults. For them, the transition to adulthood involves exiting the legally protected
status of K to 12 students and entering into adult roles that require legal status as the basis for participation. This collision among contexts makes for a turbulent transition and has profound implications for identity formation, friendship patterns, aspirations and expectations, and social and economic mobility. Undocumented children move from protected to unprotected,
from inclusion to exclusion, from de facto legal to illegal. In the process, they must learn to be illegal, a transformation that involves the almost complete retooling of daily routines, survival
skills, aspirations, and social patterns. These findings have important implications for studies of the 1.5- and second-generations and the specific and complex ways in which legal status intervenes in their coming of age. The article draws on 150 interviews with undocumented 1.5-generation young adult Latinos in Southern California.

The paper sheds light on the education system of Georgia from the perspectives of gender equality. The judgements presented in the papers is based on the results of the rigorous research of primary school system and incorporates desk-research of education policy documents, analysis of teachers' in-and pre-service training programs provided by state institutions, and survey of and face-to-face interviews with the primary school teachers. The research shows that the education policy is mostly neutral towards the gender equality issues and improperly underlines the significance of gender-balanced education at primary school level; in in-and pre-service training programs aren't oriented on sensitization of teachers for the gender balanced education and thus don't equip them with necessary knowledge and practical skills. The teachers' survey and interview show stereotypical attitude towards the students based on gender.

- by William Tate
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- Education, Social Sciences, Poverty, Educational Research
- by Cécile Stehrenberger
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- Gender Studies, Intersexuality, Diversity, Race and Racism

In the mid-twentieth century, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted their famous "doll test" in which they asked African American children whether they preferred black or white dolls. Most children identified white dolls as "nice" and black dolls as "bad"-proof, the Clarks argued, that segregation damaged black children psychologically. These findings figured pivotally in Brown v. Board of Education. Bernstein defamiliarizes the "doll test" by locating it not in the history of Civil Rights but instead in the history of representational play involving racialized dolls. Bernstein argues that a black child's rejection of a black doll might indeed reveal internalized racism; but it could also constitute a rejection of violently racist practices of play that had, for a century, been coordinated through black dolls. Thus Bernstein offers a new understanding of the Clarks' child-subjects not as passive internalizers of racism instead as agents who resisted inherited traditions of performance.

- by Robin Bernstein
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- History, American History, Sociology, Cultural Studies

Although the percentage of Blacks earning college degrees has nearly doubled over the past 20 years, Blacks earn only 10% of college degrees, 12% of graduate degrees, and 7% of doctoral degrees (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013). Furthermore, Blacks are more likely to attend lower quality institutions and less likely to graduate (Mettler, 2014). This translates into possibly fewer Black men completing degrees in public affairs education and seeking public service. If we are to secure a
representative bureaucracy (Krislov, 2013; Naff, 2001) in which both public administrators and college faculty mirror the nation’s demographics, then we must ensure that Black males have equal
access to an affordable, quality college education resulting in degree completion. In this article, we examine disparities in higher education along three procedural areas: (a) access, (b) affordability, and (c) attainment. We provide substantive policy recommendations toward ensuring both access and degree attainment for all individuals regardless of race or income.

This paper uses cross-sectional data from the 2012 US General Social Survey (GSS) to examine the relationship between differential access to and happiness gains from volunteer work, especially as indicated by race and class. This study contradicts the existing literature on the topic, mostly performed 15 years prior, with the finding that blacks volunteer in higher percentages but experience less happiness associated with volunteering than whites, while they continue to suffer from gaps in human capital attributes (education and socioeconomic status). The paper concludes that as volunteer activity becomes increasingly acceptable as a substitute for paid work experience, the human capital, social capital and status attributes that are disproportionately distributed to whites may be a source of access to categories of volunteer activity that enable growth and application of professional skills, in addition to related psychological/financial benefits. Volunteer activity is therefore framed as a possible variable contributing to systemic disparities in economic success and happiness along racial lines in the United States.

Within the Italian educational system, the transition from lower to upper secondary school constitute a crucial site to study the mechanisms at stakes in the reproduction of educational inequalities. Upper secondary track choices constitute indeed a crucial determinant of educational attainment as well as of individual future social position. Aim of this essay is to offer an in-depth analysis of one among the processes that may hinder the realization of equal educational opportunities at this branching point: teachers' guidance advices. Based on an ethnographic study carried out in two lower secondary schools in Milan, IT, the article explores the criteria teachers use to formulate recommendations to support their students upper secondary track choices. In particular, the essay show the logics underpinning teachers' tendency to guide foreign origin students toward vocational and technical school tracks.

- by Yasin Kakande
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- Media Studies, New Media, Media and Cultural Studies, Censorship

Over the last few years, increasing scholarly and media attention has been paid to the plight of undocumented immigrant college students. However, only a small fraction of undocumented youth actually moves on from high school to postsecondary opportunities. Indeed, the exclusion from financial aid eligibility and low family socioeconomic status severely limit undocumented students' ability to matriculate to institutions of higher learning. But little is known about the ways in which school experiences shape postsecondary outcomes. This article focuses on the high school experiences of a sample of undocumented young adults and examines the ways in which school structures shape access to resources needed for postsecondary matriculation. In doing so, I argue that school-based networks are critical for success. However, these networks are fundamentally shaped by the school structure. This article draws from 78 in-depth life histories of undocumented Latino young adults in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. I incorporate a sample, stratified by educational experiences. The lived experiences of these young adults shed important light on the broader world in which they live and the ways in which immigration policies interact with school practices to shape success and failure.

- by Roberto G. Gonzales
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- Sociology, Education, Sociology of Education, Social Sciences

Back cover text: Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on policy and practice. Real Social Science is a major step forward in a novel and thriving field of research. This book will benefit scholars, researchers, and students who want to make a difference in practice, not just in the academy. Its message will make it essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg and +1
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- Screenwriting, Critical Theory, Critical Theory, Critical Theory
- by Gillian Parekh
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- Education, Sociology of Education, Special Education, Alternative Education

In May 2000, the Lafayette Parish School Board, in southwest Louisiana, wasfound in violation of a 1967 federal court order to desegregate, was ordered to close two predominantly African American elementary schools, and bus those children to five predominately White schools on the other side of this city of 100,000. Additionally, the judge ordered the transfer of 12 principals based on race and the construction of a new magnet school. The present study examines questionnaire responses from middle to upper middle-class African Americans at three different times: (a) just after the court decision, (b) 1-2 months after the decision was implemented, and (c) 5 months after the court order. This study also explores the gradual shift in the responses from Lafayette's African American community.

The transition from face-to-face to distance (home and online) schooling is likely to generate educational loss. Using data from Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, we estimate that loss to be more pronounced for children from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds than for other children.
In April 2020, one month into the lockdown:
• Children in primary schools spent on average 2.4 hours per day doing schoolwork (compromising on average 2.2 offline lessons - a mix of worksheets, assignments and watching videos – and 0.6 online lessons) plus 2 hours per day of support from adults.
• Children in secondary schools spent on average 3 hours per day doing schoolwork (compromising on average 2.3 offline lessons and 1 online lesson) plus 0.9 hours per day of support from adults.
• Focusing on combinations of circumstances which are both common and policy relevant (see graphs), we found that children in the most advantaged families, where both parents work regularly from home, the main parent is in a ‘service class’ occupation (large employers, managers of professionals) and the children have their own computer spent on average 2.9 hours per day on school work for primary and 3.8 per day for secondary pupils. More disadvantaged children in families where the main parent is not in a service class occupation, where the child has to share a computer with other family members and either parent does not work regularly from home, the hours spent per day on school work are 2.3 for primary and 2.6 for secondary education.
Socio-economic differences in the estimated education loss are marked.
• For children in primary education, those from the most advantaged families will have lost on average 24% of a standard deviation across subjects by the time schools reopen in autumn, while children from the most disadvantaged families will have lost 31% of a standard deviation.
• For children in secondary education, children from the most advantaged group will have lost on average 14% of a standard deviation across subjects, while children from the most disadvantaged group will have lost twice as much, 28% of a standard deviation.

- by Anthony Kelly and +1
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- Home Schooling, Educational Inequalities (class; race; gender etc), Remote Learning
- by Ted Thornhill, Ph.D.
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- Management, History, American History, Sociology

Le service d’étude de l’Appel pour une école démocratique (Aped) a réalisé une analyse autonome et originale des résultats de l’enquête PISA 2012. Ses enseignements sont présentés ici. Il en ressort que la Belgique est, avec la France, le pays d’Europe occidentale dont l’enseignement est le plus inéquitable. C’était le cas depuis longtemps pour la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Mais récemment la situation de l’équité s’est fortement dégradée en Flandre et en France. On découvre également que la Flandre est le système éducatif où l’écart entre élèves autochtones et allochtones est le plus important (même à origine sociale identique). Et celui où les performances scolaires sont le plus étroitement liées au niveau d’étude des parents.
Notre étude montre que ces inégalités sociales ou liées à l’immigration sont avant tout le résultat de puissants mécanismes de ségrégation. C’est en Flandre que les élèves issus de l’immigration ont la plus grande probabilité d’être confinés dans des écoles « ghettos ». En Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles et en France, les taux de redoublement sont parmi les plus élevés d’Europe occidentale et l’impact de l’origine sociale sur la probabilité d’un redoublement y est particulièrement criant. Sélection précoce, quasi-marchés, réseaux concurrents et polarisation sociale des établissements scolaires caractérisent les systèmes d’enseignement de Belgique et, dans une mesure croissante, de France.

In this paper we study the family variables affecting academic achievement within a Canary Island sample.
Parents’ level of education, parents’ expectations about academic achievement, Socioeconomic Status (SES), family size, type of family and parents’ control over the student’s homework are used as predicting variables in a logistic regression for predicting which variables load in high academic achievement. These variables are incorporated into two different theoretical models: the social capital view of Coleman and the cultural capital view of Bourdieu. The results indicate that the variables having a leading role are parents’ expectations, parents’ education, SES and family size.
Keywords: Academic Achievement; Cultural Capital; Family; Logistic Regression; Social Capital.

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.

- by Bent Flyvbjerg
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- Critical Theory, Business, Entrepreneurship, Organizational Behavior

The analysis of the PISA results indicates that both Greece and the United Kingdom show a degree of inequality in students’ achievement, whereas Sweden demonstrates comparatively high levels of educational equality. Educational inequality can be measured in two ways: standard deviations which give the spread of scores in a given country and the socioeconomic gradient which measures how far social origin effects influence individual achievement. According to results from PISA, the overall variation in student performance is much higher in the United Kingdom and Greece than in Sweden (OECD 2001:253, Table 2.3a) and the relationship between student performance and socioeconomic background is again considerably stronger in the first two countries (OECD 2001:308, Table 8.1).