The National Social Distance Study: Ten Years Later

The Bogardus social distance scale, which measures the level of acceptance that Americans feel toward members of the most common ethnic and racial groups in the United States, was administered six times nationally between 1920 and 2001. Replicating the most recent study with its revised list of ethnic and racial groups, the authors of this study analyzed a stratified random sample of 3,166 college students, making it the largest national social distance study ever conducted. The findings indicate an increase since 2001 in the mean level of social distance toward all ethnic groups, as well as in the spread between the groups with the highest and lowest levels of social distance. Further, a consistency between studies in group preferences reaffirms the relevance of the similarity‐attraction bond in accepting those who are racially and culturally different. Mean comparisons and analysis of variance tests also showed that gender, birthplace of respondents and/or their parents, race, and year in college are all significant indicators of the level of social distance toward groups.     

The Role of High School Connections to Colleges in Adolescents' Transitions to Higher Education

With most adolescents now aspiring to graduate from college, assisting students in making the transition has become a key institutional function of high schools. Information about the application process is especially important for college entrance as admissions criteria are localized. Gaining access to information is one of the most important benefits of social capital. This study asks whether high schools with more connections to colleges are more successful in helping their students gain admission to college and, in particular, to selective four-year colleges. This study investigates the effects of having connections to colleges at a high school on students' college entry. This study also shows that actions taken by individual families bring about a contextual effect of a high school on the college selectivity that students attended in the same high school. These effects also mediate the relationship between school socioeconomic composition and enrollment in selective colleges.     

Gender and White College Students' Racial Attitudes

New forms of racial attitudes among whites, including racial resentment, help to uphold institutionalized inequalities in the United States. As a way to dismantle institutionalized forms of racial inequalities, colleges and universities have implemented various curricula and programs designed to expose students to diversity and reduce social inequalities. This study attempts to uncover the extent to which college experiences affect levels of racial resentment among white students, with emphasis on whether the effects differ for women and men. Findings from a representative sample of students at a large Midwestern university revealed that white men showed higher levels of racial resentment than white women and that their attitudes were significantly affected by many college experiences. By contrast, white women are less affected by aspects of their college experience.     

The role of race in the Out-of-school suspensions of black students: The perspectives of students with suspensions,their parents and educators

The disproportionate out-of-school suspension of Black students is a persistent racial and social justice issue nationwide. We approached this issue sensitized by social construction and critical race theories. Thirty-one youth, 28 caregivers and 19 educators participated in in-depth, semi-structured audio recorded interviews. Most participants viewed racial bias and cultural differences as responsible for the disproportionate suspension of Black youth. Many highlighted educators' negative attitudes toward Black students. Students and caregivers argued that Black students are treated more harshly than White students and are targeted as disciplinary problems. These perspectives suggest that racial bias results in a school culture that pathologizes Black students and their families. Educators also described challenges to responding to student misbehavior including the cultural diversity of the Black student population and their disproportionate exposure to social problems such as poverty that impact school engagement. We discuss implications for how social workers may support the partnering of caregivers, educators and community members to reduce racial bias in schools.     

Beyond the Low-Hanging Fruit: Reducing Racial Inequality by Rethinking School Safety Efforts

In this essay, I examine the problem of excessive and racially disproportionate school discipline. I begin by considering how each of the four most popular Democratic candidates in the presidential primary race as of January 2020 addresses this issue. Excessive and racially disproportionate school discipline harms students, schools, and communities, and it deepens existing racial inequalities. Each candidate promises some remedy, and all represent a step in the right direction. However, all of their proposals are shallow. To fruitfully address these issues, policymakers must consider the cultural embeddedness of school discipline, how it is implemented within complex school bureaucracies, and the underlying racial inequality that shapes school discipline. Policymakers must also draw attention to the fact that schools are, overall, safe and do not require the massive investments in security personnel and technology that draw funds away from more effective supports for students.     

A multi-level analysis of school racial composition and ecological correlates of academic success

Current policy and practice interventions have failed to address disparities in academic success by race/ethnicity or socio-economic status. In addition, as policy interventions to prevent racially segregated schools have stalled, progress toward reducing these achievement gaps has also slowed. This exploratory study employs multi-level modeling to examine how risk and protective factors in students' schools, homes, peer groups, and neighborhoods relate to behavior and academic performance. We examine whether these relationships depend on the racial composition of the school and, in particular, the concentration of African American students in schools. The findings indicate that protective school, home, peer group, and neighborhood environments characterized by social support and safety are associated with positive academic outcomes and behavior. Students attending more segregated schools in which the majority of students are African American report worse behavioral and academic outcomes than students in other schools, even when controlling for other important dimensions of the school environment, school climate, school safety, and poverty. In addition, school racial composition shapes how key protective factors relate to grades.     

DO COLLEGE‐PREPARATORY PROGRAMS IMPROVE LONG‐TERM OUTCOMES?

This paper presents an analysis of the longer‐run effects of a college‐preparatory program implemented in inner‐city schools that provided teacher training in addition to payments to 11th‐ and 12th‐grade students and their teachers for passing scores on Advanced Placement (AP) exams. Affected students passed more AP exams, were more likely to remain in college beyond their first and second years, and earned higher wages. Effects are particularly pronounced for Hispanic students who experienced a 2.5‐percentage‐point increase in college degree attainment and an 11% increase in earnings. While the study is based on nonexperimental variation, the results are robust across a variety of specifications, and most plausible sources of bias are ruled out. The results provide credible evidence that implementing high‐quality college‐preparatory programs in existing urban schools can improve the long‐run educational and labor‐market outcomes of disadvantaged youth. (JEL I2, I24, J0)     

Latina Students

SUMMARY

Latina students have the highest high school dropout rate of all racial and ethnic groups. This article has three objectives: provide a brief overview of educational trends for Latina students, discuss factors associated with their educational trajectory and suggest strategies for change based on best practice wisdom. Results show that academic disparities between Latina students and other racial/ethnic female students begin as early as kindergarten and remain through age 17; achievement is compromised by a variety of factors, including family responsibilities, family poverty, lack of participation in preschool, attendance at poor quality elementary and high schools, placement into lower-track classes, poor self-image, limited neighborhood resources, lack of presence of role models and gender role attitudes. These disparities contribute to psychosocial issues and are not directly associated with Latino cultural assets, as Latino cultural capital has not been easily translated into social capital in U.S. society. Economic and social change must precede educational change if academic disparities between Latinas and other racial and ethnic girls are to be decreased.     

Do magnet and charter schools exacerbate or ameliorate inequality?

School choice typically refers to opportunities to enroll youth in public and/or private educational alternatives to traditional neighborhood public schools. While these options continue to grow in the United States under the umbrella of school choice, magnet and charter schools are the most common forms of public school choice. In this article, we review the development of school choice and the differing historical and philosophical origins of magnet and charter schools. We then summarize what we know about the extent to which these public choice options exacerbate or ameliorate two forms of inequality—academic achievement and school segregation by race and class. Research suggests that magnet schools often encourage racial and class diversity, while charters contribute to racial and socioeconomic isolation. While low‐income minority students may benefit academically from attending magnet schools, it is unclear whether charter schools have any effect on achievement when comparing charter school students to their counterparts in traditional public school. We expect that continued growth of magnet schools will likely promote school diversity both within and between districts, though some types of magnets may also inadvertently promote segregation. However, expansion of the charter school sector will heighten school segregation and exacerbate racial and socioeconomic isolation.     

Conquering with capital: social,cultural, and economic capital’s role in combating socioeconomic disadvantage and contributing to educational attainment

While socioeconomic barriers to learning have been well-documented by education, sociology, and social policy scholars, further research is needed to understand how students with low-socioeconomic status excel in high-performing schools. The collection and analysis of 20 in-depth interviews with female college students from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds provide rich insights into the stark differences between the educational practices of low and high-SES students. Building on Bourdieu’s conceptualization of how habitus and capital influence practices in the field of education exposes unique, strategic practices that low-SES students use to attain educational success within a system of reproduction and power. While entering a high-performing school is often perceived as a definitive step for accessing high-quality educational resources, my findings illustrate how it is actually an important intermediary step within a more complex process. Increasing educational opportunity and attainment for low-SES students requires improving their access to social, cultural, and economic capital through knowledgeable mentors who contribute to a habitus and portfolio of capital which enable practices to successfully navigate and challenge the educational system.     

Beyond and below racial homophily: ERG models of a friendship network documented on Facebook

A notable feature of U.S. social networks is their high degree of racial homogeneity, which is often attributed to racial homophily--the preference for associating with individuals of the same racial background. The authors unpack racial homogeneity using a theoretical framework that distinguishes between various tie formation mechanisms and their effects on the racial composition of networks, exponential random graph modeling that can disentangle these mechanisms empirically, and a rich new data set based on the Facebook pages of a cohort of college students. They first show that racial homogeneity results not only from racial homophily proper but also from homophily among coethnics of the same racial background and from balancing mechanisms such as the tendency to reciprocate friendships or to befriend the friends of friends, which both amplify the homogeneity effects of homophily. Then, they put the importance of racial homophily further into perspective by comparing its effects to those of other mechanisms of tie formation. Balancing, propinquity based on coresidence, and homophily regarding nonracial categories (e.g., students from "elite" backgrounds or those from particular states) all influence the tie formation process more than does racial homophily.     

The Price of Opportunity: Race,Student Loan Debt,and College Achievement

This paper examines racial differences in student loan debt and concurrently assesses the potential payoffs and countervailing risks inherent in reliance on loans in a cohort of black and white first‐year college students. Using the 1996–2001 Beginning Postsecondary Student study we find that the use of loans results in greater enrollment persistence and higher odds of college completion, especially for black students. However, black students acquire larger amounts of student loan debt and face a higher risk of default than white students. This is in part due to associated racial differences in family socioeconomic status and type of institution attended. We suggest these findings illuminate the dual‐sided nature of college loans that makes them an imperfect, but overall positive, tool for reducing educational inequality. On the one hand, student loans reduce educational inequality that otherwise results from disadvantaged students' struggles to pay for college and complete college in a timely fashion. At the same time, the degree to which loans reduce racial inequality is diminished by black students' higher loan amounts, the large number of black students who borrow but do not finish college, and the large racial difference in the odds of defaulting on a loan.     

Silver Inflation and the Senate in 1933

Along with the ever-increasing racial/ethnic diversity in U.S. schools, researchers began to investigate the impact of racial/ethnic identity on young people's understanding of the nation's history. Compared to other racial minorities, Asian American students have received little academic and educational attention. This article seeks to address this gap through a qualitative study on Korean American youth. Drawing from in-depth interviews with twenty Korean American high school students, this article examines how Korean American youth make sense of U.S. history and how their sociocultural backgrounds affect their historical perspectives as well as their ideas and experiences of learning history historical perspectives.     

SCHOOL RACIAL COMPOSITION AND BIRACIAL ADOLESCENTS' SCHOOL ATTACHMENT

Despite extensive research on multiracial youth in recent years, to date, no empirical studies have analyzed how racial context may affect biracial adolescents' sense of belonging in a social institution beyond families. In this study, we examine how the racial makeup of the student body affects self-identified biracial adolescents' school attachment. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find that the proportions of white or black students in school significantly affect the school attachment of Hispanic/black, Asian/black, and American Indian/black biracial adolescents, but school racial composition in general has little influence on biracial adolescents with a partial-white identification (i.e., black/white, Hispanic/white, Asian/white, and American Indian/white). Our analyses also show that on average, students of most biracial groups display lower school attachment than their corresponding monoracial groups, but the differences from the monoracial groups with the lower school attachment are generally small. We discuss the implications of our findings for biracial adolescents' perceived racial boundaries and contemporary American race relations.     

“Did You See What I Saw?” Gender Differences in Perceptions of Avenues to Prestige among Adolescents

We use data from 1,796 college students to explore gender differences in perceptions of avenues to prestige during adolescence. Students attending seven large universities during the 1997–98 academic year provided information on the ways in which adolescents in their high schools had gained prestige with peers. The analysis reveals substantial gender differences in perceptions regarding the most common avenues to prestige. Most important, men were less likely than women to report that female students in their high schools accrued prestige through sports and grades, and more likely than women to report that male students accrued prestige through engaging in deviant behaviors, such as sexual activity, drug and alcohol use, and fighting. We discuss the findings in the context of gender differences in social perception and gender-role attitudes.     

A Theory of Minority Students' Survival in College

This paper sets forth a theory to explain the survival of minority students in college. Minority students are faced with barriers such as cultural and racial isolation, unfamiliarity with college life, and hostility. As colleges place greater emphasis on diversity, campuses are more likely to turn into hostile milieus for minority students. In reaction, minority students will close ranks and seek other minority students on campus to form ethnic social networks rooted in their ethnic subculture. The ethnic social networks serve: (1) to reinforce excellence in academics; (2) to provide social support and information for students in navigating the college maze; and (3) to increase solidarity and pride in members. These minority social networks on campus help integrate minority students into the college social and academic systems and thereby maximize the students' survival in college.     

Race and STEM Degree Attainment

This paper reviews the key literature on racial disparities in entry and persistence to attain a STEM bachelor's degree. Overall, the literature provides quite consistent evidence that Black and Hispanic students are well represented in college major choices in STEM, which testifies to the interest of racial minorities in STEM fields. However, they are left behind during college, and many are left without a STEM degree or any degree whatsoever. We emphasize that although racial minority students may seem to be left behind during college in STEM fields, the problem dates further back to pre‐college. We need to examine college and pre‐college studies in an integrative manner, in order to achieve full understanding and come up with the right solution to the problem of racial disparity in STEM attainment.     

Stratification and Prestige Hierarchies in Graduate and Professional Education*

Earlier research indicates that the “academic hierarchy” encourages and reflects both meritocratic standards and long-standing status distinctions. Using a nationwide survey of graduate and professional students, this study considers the relative and independent influence of students' social class, sex, race, undergraduate achievement, and rank of undergraduate institution attended on rank of graduate or professional school they attend. Students in the total group, universities and colleges, as well as public and private institutions are examined. Analysis of covariance results suggest that undergraduate rank is the strongest predictor of rank of institution attended. Attendance at highly ranked undergraduate institutions predicts appropriate location at prestigious graduate and professional schools. Level of undergraduate achievement also has independent effects. Higher achievement predicts attendance at both highly ranked and slightly lower ranked institutions. Social class influences location in the academic hierarchy, but in an unexpected direction. Working class students often attend higher ranked schools than their upper middle and middle class counterparts. Findings show that men and women attend similarly ranked institutions, and female students attend higher ranked schools than males. The independent effects of race also indicate that racial groups attend different as well as similarly ranked institutions. Finally, limited interactions of three independent variables show that expected merit, social class, and sex advantages do not persist for all students.     

Collective Self-Esteem and Coping Strategies among Vietnamese American Adolescents

This article reports on the “social empathy attitudes” results that were part of a larger study on empathy in college students at a large research university in the Southwest. Two hundred ninety-four students completed the Social Empathy Assessment Index (SEAI). The research hypothesis was that students of color would have higher levels of social empathy attitudes than Caucasian students. The statistically significant SEAI items suggested that Latino students identify as more collectivist and more optimistic and have higher levels of social empathy attitudes. Latinos may be more willing to help a stranger than either Caucasians or members of other racial groups.     

Willingness to participate in organ donation among black Seventh-Day Adventist college students

OBJECTIVE AND PARTICIPANTS: The authors studied a group of black and white Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) college students (N = 334) to compare the power of religious socialization with racial socialization. METHODS: The authors compared the levels of willingness to donate organs between black and nonblack students in an availability sample. RESULTS: Black SDA college students were significantly more likely than white SDA students or SDA students of other races to perceive racism in the healthcare system and to believe that doctors would not make heroic efforts to save their lives if they knew they were organ donors; they were 66.9% less likely to donate organs than were white SDA students or SDA students of other races. CONCLUSIONS: Despite a common religion with a purposive indoctrination, the racial socialization of black SDA students exerted a stronger influence on willingness to participate in organ donation than did that of white students and students of other races within this religion.