Environmental Causes of Achievement Gaps: Socioeconomic Status

2012 ◽  
pp. 87-98
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Achievement Gaps ◽  
Environmental Causes

scholarly journals Intelligence Can Be Used to Make a More Equitable Society but Only When Properly Defined and Applied

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
LaTasha R Holden ◽  
Sara Ann Hart
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
School Achievement ◽  
Scientific Work ◽  
Achievement Gaps ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Social Inequities ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World

In the US, undeniable evidence shows that socioeconomic inequities explain a high proportion of individual differences in school achievement. Although not all countries show this same effect due to socioeconomic status, it is consistently found that social inequities lead to achievement gaps. These achievement gaps then manifest into trajectories that set some individuals on a path of lower incomes, poorer health and higher mortality, lower wellbeing, and other poor adult outcomes. Like Flynn (1999) so handily reminded the scientific literature that achievement gaps are explainable by environmental factors, the inequities we see around the world are based on environments some children are exposed to. In the same work, Flynn stated his belief that the suppression of scientific work on intelligence would continue to lead to social inequities. We wish to take this idea and move it forward. We believe that the scientific construct of intelligence plays a key role in helping create a more equitable society through science. We also believe that the poor perception of intelligence, rooted in historical realities, means that it will continue to be misunderstood, feared, and misused, limiting how effective it could be in helping to close gaps in achievement and in creating a more equitable society.

scholarly journals Estimating the Relationship Between Preschool Attendance and Kindergarten Science Achievement: Implications for Early Science Achievement Gaps

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Chris Curran
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Science Achievement ◽  
Achievement Gaps ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Preschool Attendance ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Preschool Participation ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Relationship

Recent evidence demonstrates that disparities by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status in science achievement are present in the earliest grades of school. Preschool represents one potential policy solution; however, little research has explored the relationship between preschool attendance and science outcomes. This study examines whether preschool participation may improve science outcomes overall and reduce science achievement gaps by race/ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of 2011, this study uses school and classroom fixed effects models with a robust set of controls to estimate the relationship between preschool attendance and early science outcomes. Results suggest that attending preschool is predictive of higher teacher-rated science ability in the fall of kindergarten but that preschool is not predictive of higher science achievement in the spring of kindergarten. The relationship is not found to consistently differ by student race, socioeconomic status, or gender, though descriptive results demonstrate that subgroups have different patterns of preschool attendance. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

scholarly journals Reducing achievement gaps in undergraduate general chemistry could lift underrepresented students into a “hyperpersistent zone”

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (24) ◽  
pp. eaaz5687 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. B. Harris ◽  
M. R. Mack ◽  
J. Bryant ◽  
E. J. Theobald ◽  
S. Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
General Chemistry ◽  
Underrepresented Students ◽  
Academic Preparation ◽  
Achievement Gaps ◽  
Family Education ◽  
Point Scale ◽  
Stem Majors ◽  
Underrepresented Groups ◽  
Race Ethnicity

Students from underrepresented groups start college with the same level of interest in STEM majors as their peers, but leave STEM at higher rates. We tested the hypothesis that low grades in general chemistry contribute to this “weeding,” using records from 25,768 students. In the first course of a general chemistry series, grade gaps based on binary gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and family education background ranged from 0.12 to 0.54 on a four-point scale. Gaps persisted when the analysis controlled for academic preparation, indicating that students from underrepresented groups underperformed relative to their capability. Underrepresented students were less likely than well-represented peers to persist in chemistry if they performed below a C−, but more likely to persist if they got a C or better. This “hyperpersistent zone” suggests that reducing achievement gaps could have a disproportionately large impact on efforts to achieve equity in STEM majors and professions.

scholarly journals Socioeconomic Status as a Multidimensional Predictor of Student Achievement in 77 Societies

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimmo Eriksson ◽  
Jannika Lindvall ◽  
Ola Helenius ◽  
Andreas Ryve
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Student Achievement ◽  
Occupational Status ◽  
Achievement Gaps ◽  
Independent Effect ◽  
Composite Measure ◽  
At Home

We reassess the relation between students’ socioeconomic status (SES) and their achievement by treating SES as multidimensional instead of unidimensional. We use data from almost 600,000 students in 77 countries participating in the 2018 PISA assessment of student achievement in math, science, and reading. The composite measure of SES that PISA uses can be broken down into six component variables that we here use as simultaneous predictors of achievement. This analysis yields several new insights. First, in the typical society, two predictors (books at home and parents’ highest occupational status) clearly outperform the rest. Second, a new composite measure based only on these two components often reveals substantially larger achievement gaps than those reported by PISA. Third, the analysis revealed remarkable differences between societies in the relation between achievement and wealth possessions. In most societies, the independent effect of wealth possessions on student achievement was zero or even slightly negative—but in the least developed societies it was strongly positive. These findings have implications for how SES achievement gaps should be measured and interpreted.

Black–White achievement gaps differ by family socioeconomic status from early childhood through early adolescence.

2020 ◽  
Vol 112 (8) ◽  
pp. 1471-1489
Author(s):  
Daphne A. Henry ◽  
Laura Betancur Cortés ◽  
Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal
Keyword(s):  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Adolescence ◽  
Achievement Gaps ◽  
Family Socioeconomic Status
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