High School Experiences That Support Post-School Success: What Can We Learn?

Students with disabilities continue to lag behind their peers without disabilities in the area of post-school success. This study qualitatively analyzed individual responses from 6 years of post-school outcomes survey data in one state to identify positive experiences said to help students reach their post-school goals. Respondents reported nine themes as being the most helpful in meeting their goals after high school, including having supportive staff members, taking career development coursework, and developing success attributes such as self-advocacy. A negative experience theme also emerged in the analysis. Implications for educators are discussed related to emphasizing instruction in self-determination and career development. Implications for states are discussed related to the post-school outcomes data collection process.

The Making of a College Athlete: High School Experiences, Socioeconomic Advantages, and the Likelihood of Playing College Sports

Understandings of who plays college sports are dominated by assumptions that lack academic scrutiny. Using the Education Longitudinal Study (N = 7,810) and multilevel modeling, this study examines the extent to which high school indicators of family socioeconomic statuses, athletic development and merit, academic expectations and knowledge, and school contexts predict the likelihood of becoming a college athlete. The authors find evidence that supports our understanding of the process of becoming a college athlete being shaped by family socioeconomic status. Still, high school sport participation characteristics, academic expectations and knowledge, and school contexts also seem to offer independent contributions to the odds of becoming a college athlete. Overall, these results suggest that college athletic opportunities are not simply a function of athletic merit, based on unique analyses of quantitative empirical evidence from a large national sample of high school students.

Increasing Access to Selective High Schools through Place-Based Affirmative Action: Unintended Consequences

We investigate whether elite Chicago public high schools differentially benefit high-achieving students from more and less affluent neighborhoods. Chicago’s place-based affirmative action policy allocates seats based on achievement and neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES). Using regression discontinuity design (RDD), we find that these schools do not raise test scores overall, but students are generally more positive about their high school experiences. For students from low-SES neighborhoods, we estimate negative effects on grades and the probability of attending a selective college. We present suggestive evidence that these findings for students from low-SES neighborhoods are driven by the negative effect of relative achievement ranking. (JEL H75, I21, I24, I28, R23)

Inclusive STEM High School Factors Influencing Ethnic Minority Students’ STEM Preparation

The purpose of this study was to better understand school factors influencing ethnic minority students’ science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) preparation in Inclusive STEM High Schools (ISHSs). The researchers conducted a phenomenological study that used semi-structured interviews with participants (N=13) who graduated from ISHSs in Texas. Participants’ STEM high school experiences were classified into nine categories: a) innovative STEM and non-STEM instruction, b) rigorous STEM curriculum, c) integration of technology and engineering in classrooms, d) quality of teachers, e) real-world STEM partnership, f) informal STEM opportunities, g) academic and social support for struggling students, h) emphasis on STEM courses, majors, and careers, and i) preparation for a college workload. These characteristics can be helpful for schools to establish a STEM-focused school environment and have the potential to cultivate positive experiences for ethnic minority students to increase their interest and capabilities in STEM fields.

Accurate Empathy, Social Rejection, and Social Anxiety Disorder

We conducted two studies to examine the relationship between social anxiety ( n = 134) and social anxiety disorder (SAD; n = 126), social exclusion, and empathic accuracy. Participants were randomly assigned to either a control or an exclusion condition and then observed four videos of targets discussing high school experiences in which they were socially excluded. Participants’ ratings of targets’ emotions while discussing those experiences were compared with targets’ self-ratings. Results of both studies indicated that individuals with social anxiety and SAD displayed greater empathic accuracy than control subjects and that exclusion did not affect that relationship. State measures of participants’ emotional and cognitive reactions to targets mediated the association between SAD and accuracy. When asked to provide advice to targets, SAD participants provided fewer responses overall and fewer suggestions that promoted relationship repair. Thus, they were less able to translate their empathic responses for social pain into prosocial action.