Increased interest in anti-racist education has motivated the rapidly growing but politically contentious adoption of ethnic-studies (ES) courses in U.S. public schools. A long-standing rationale for ES courses is that their emphasis on culturally relevant and critically engaged content (e.g., social justice, anti-racism, stereotypes, contemporary social movements) has potent effects on student engagement and outcomes. However, the quantitative evidence supporting this claim is limited. In this pre- registered, regression-discontinuity study, we examine the longer-run impact of a grade-9 ES course offered in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). Our key confirmatory finding is that assignment to this course significantly increased the probability of high-school graduation among students near the grade-GPA threshold (i.e., 2.0 GPA in grade 8) used for assigning students to the course. Our exploratory analyses also indicate that this assignment increased measures of engagement throughout high school (e.g., attendance) as well as the probability of postsecondary matriculation.
Ethnic studies increases longer-run academic engagement and attainment
