Roma pupils’ attitudes towards education – a case study

When analysing the reasons behind the academic underachievement of Roma pupils, some teachers suggest that Roma people do not value education and that Roma children have negative attitudes towards school. With increasing frequency, Roma pupils from low socio-economic backgrounds are being researched and the research primarily adopts the perspectives of teachers and schools’ professional staff. The present study analyses attitudes towards education held by Roma pupils whose socio-economic status is comparable to the majority population and considers their perspective. The research was conducted with Roma pupils attending primary school in Maribor, Slovenia. To collect data, interviews were conducted. The study results suggest that the majority of Roma pupils from Maribor like attending school and value formal education; the majority indicated that they want to complete primary school and continue their education. The results also show that Roma pupils can be highly academically motivated if improved life conditions and improved education opportunities are provided to the Roma population.     

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.     

The Relative Salience of Physiognomic Cues in Differentiating Faces: A Methodological Tool

This research utilized a novel methodology to explore the relative salience of facial cues to age, sex, race, and emotion in differentiating faces. Inspired by the Stroop interference effect, participants viewed pairs of schematic faces on a computer that differed simultaneously along two facial dimensions (e.g., race and age) and were prompted to make similarity judgments about the faces along one of the dimensions (e.g., race). On a second round of trials, judgments were made along the other dimension (e.g., age). Analysis of response speed and accuracy revealed that participants judged the race of the faces more quickly and with fewer errors compared to their age, gender, or emotional expression. Methodological and theoretical implications for studying the role of facial cues in social perception are discussed.     

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.     

Kids Talking About Race: Tween‐agers in a Post‐Civil Rights Era

Our research examines how American children understand and talk about how race matters in their everyday lives. We draw on interviews with 44 middle school children who attend schools in an integrated county‐wide system and find that while some use color‐blind rhetoric, most children in our study know that race matters, while they offer alternative accounts for why and how. Some explain race as social inequality, while others offer cultural accounts of racial differences. Our analysis suggests that for white children, gender matters; more girls describe racial inequality than boys. For children of color, class seems to be key, with middle‐class children giving cultural explanations, including negative evaluations of others in their own racial group. We use an intersectionality framework to analyze the alternative and complex narratives children give for their own experiences of race and race relations between peers.     

ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS AND SCHOOL SEGREGATION IN HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA, 1987–1999

This article draws upon the political economy and urban ecology of race perspectives to examine trends in school segregation for schools located various distances from environmental hazards. We study trends in segregation among eighty-four public grade schools between the years of 1987 and 1999 in the Hillsborough County (Florida) School District. After controlling for the percentage of students eligible for free lunch, we find that grade schools nearer to environmental hazards became disproportionately black and Hispanic while grade schools situated farther from hazards became disproportionately white. These results are consistent with a political economy of race perspective. We argue that the observed relationship between public school racial and ethnic composition and environmental hazards is likely the result of long-term historical processes that shaped geographic patterns of racial segregation.     

It’s All in the Definition: Color-Blind Interpretations of School Diversity

Color-blind theory posits that ignoring race is a purposeful tool for protecting white privilege. Implicit in this theory is the idea that color blindness arises in times of racial threat because color-blind attitudes provide individuals with a tool for justifying racialized practices. Schools provide an ideal context for testing these implicit assumptions of color-blind theory. Public schools have shifted from using race conscious practices, such as forced busing, to racially ambiguous ones, such as touting diversity to address racial integration. Diversity is racially ambiguous because it can be interpreted as the inclusion of racial minorities but can also have a broader, color-blind meaning. In this study, I use a survey experiment to test whether experiencing racial threat leads white participants to have a color-blind interpretation of school diversity and whether racialized practices (in this case, picking a whiter school) mediates that relationship. I find evidence corroborating color-blind theory. Experiencing racial threat increases the probability that participants have a color-blind understanding of school diversity. Further, I find evidence that the mechanism explaining this relationship is participants picking whiter schools, highlighting that color blindness can be used as a tool to justify racialized practices.     

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.     

Opportunities to Play the Game: The Effect of Individual and School Attributes on Participation in Sports

Historically, African Americans and white girls have not had the same access to playing sports as white boys have had. Changes in laws led to racial integration of sports teams and equal athletic opportunities for girls. Yet, racial and gender gaps in playing sports persist, and intersections between race and gender, as well as different contexts of participation, may contribute to the gaps. This article uses structural resource and racial competition theories to examine the interactions among race, gender, and school environment to determine whether racial gaps persist for boys and girls and whether individual and school-level factors account for gender-specific racial gaps in sports participation. We combine data on every ninth-grade student in North Carolina public schools with data from school yearbooks and find that racial gaps in playing sports differ by gender, and that school factors—including opportunities schools provide to play sports—have unique influences on racial gaps for boys and girls.     

Race and risk behaviors: The mediating role of school bonding

This study tests the hypotheses that school bonding mediates the relationship between adolescents' racial background and key risk behaviors (substance use, failing grades, and fighting). Data sources include an epidemiological survey administered at 50 urban schools to 16,169 students, linked to information about school context (socioeconomic composition, attendance rate, and grade-level). Results indicate that school bonding partially mediates the relationship between race and risk behavior. Findings suggest that culturally responsive efforts to strengthen educational attachment, connection, commitment, and involvement among youth of color may reduce gaps in outcomes that are perceived to be distal from schooling. Further development and testing of multi-level interventions that increase school bonding among youth from non-dominant racial groups are needed.     

Structural racism as the fundamental cause of the academic achievement gap

Over six decades since the Supreme Court ruled that all American children have the right to a high quality education, the academic achievement gap remains an important social problem in the United States. Researchers interested in understanding the achievement gap generally seek to find the mechanisms that can explain why Black students continue to achieve at lower levels than their White counterparts. This research has shown that differences in socioeconomic status, family cultural resources, school quality and racial composition, and bias and prejudice in schools all act as mechanisms that link race to academic achievement. In this paper, we review studies from the past 10 years on the academic achievement gap. We argue that while all of the factors identified in the literature can add insight to how race structures educational achievement, the fundamental cause of the achievement gap is structural racism, a system of social organization that privileges White Americans and disadvantages Americans of color. We argue that acknowledging structural racism as the fundamental cause of the achievement gap can provide a unifying framework for interpreting findings from studies of specific mechanisms link race to academic outcomes.     

Risk Assessment Tools and Racial/Ethnic Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System

This paper addresses the possible consequences for racial and ethnic disparities of the growing reliance on risk assessment tools for sentencing in juvenile justice systems. These tools consider both legal factors (i.e. criminal history) and personal background factors (e.g. household composition, parents’ arrest history, the youth’s mental health, attitudes, school status, and current employment status) to predict the likelihood of recidivism, which then informs punishment decisions. Because they decontextualize race, the associations between race and risk factors linked to race could possibly create higher risk scores and harsher punishments for minority youth.     

Bildungserfolg von Kindern in Abhängigkeit von der Stellung in der Geschwisterreihe

Based on grades in school and on parental educational aspirations the article investigates the influence of siblings’ birth order on educational opportunities and educational success of elementary school pupils. It is examined whether this influence varies by social strata, i.e., whether it is moderated by the socio-economic status of parental households. Theoretical background are the resource dilution model which focuses on siblings’ rivalry for scarce family resources, the confluence model which refers to the intellectual environment within families, and the family niche model which postulates effects of siblings on personality traits of children. Furthermore, status maintenance motives of parents are used to explain birth order effects. Empirical analyses are based on a study of 1369 pupils—4th graders of elementary schools—in the city of Wiesbaden, Germany. It can be shown that the birth order has negative effects on the chosen educational indicators (grades in school, parental educational aspirations). In accordance with prior research, grades of children get worse with their position in the birth order, other things being equal. The birth order also affects educational aspirations which parents hold for their children. In this context, the crucial result of the article is: When older siblings already guarantee the social status of the family in an intergenerational perspective, parents with high SES reduce their educational aspirations for younger siblings (elimination of the status maintenance motive). In families with low SES, however, parental educational aspirations for younger siblings increase, when older siblings successfully have reached higher educational credentials (social learning from role models).     

Learning Racial Literacy While Navigating White Social Studies

Abstract

How do children develop racial literacy? How do they make sense of and respond to the master narratives of race and racism? What role does elementary social studies education play in children’s racial literacy development? I explored these questions as a parent–researcher, inquiring how my child, an Asian American elementary student, develops racial literacy as she learns U.S. history at school. In the following, I first situate my inquiry within the literature on social studies education from a critical race perspective. Next, I delineate my positionality as a critical race motherscholar and the rationale for studying my own child. Last, I present the findings from my inquiry and discuss its implications for elementary social studies education.     

Perceived Racial Discrimination and Self-Esteem in African American Youth: Racial Socialization as a Protective Factor

Racial socialization was examined as a protective factor that might buffer African American youth from the negative effects of perceived racial discrimination. Two types of racial socialization were examined: messages about race pride and preparation for bias. One hundred twenty-eight eighth-grade African American students participated in the study. As anticipated, both types of socialization moderated the relationship between discrimination and self-esteem. The negative relationship between perceived discrimination and self-esteem was mitigated for youth who reported more messages about race pride and a moderate amount of preparation for bias from their parents. In contrast, low race pride socialization and both high and low preparation for bias were associated with a negative relationship between perceived discrimination and self-esteem.     

Controversies in Implicit Race Bias Research

Advances in measurement have allowed researchers to empirically distinguish between explicit attitudes, which are conscious and controllable, and implicit attitudes, which are activated automatically without cognitive effort or even awareness. Researchers using these methods have shown that although survey data reveal unprecedented declines in Americans’ expressions of overtly racist attitudes, most Americans continue to harbor an implicit pro‐White bias relative to other racial minority groups. This research has generated a great deal of controversy. The primary focus of the controversy has been on the findings that have come out of studies using the Implicit Association Test or IAT – a response‐time computer software program that records the speed with which positive and negative evaluations of different racial groups come to mind. This paper addresses the following questions that continue to divide researchers: (1) What does the IAT measure? (2) How do implicit attitudes as measured by the IAT relate to people’s race‐related judgments and behaviors? (3) What are the political and legal implications of being able to measure implicit racial bias?     

‘An Injurious Effect on the Neighbourhood’: Narratives of Neighbourhood Decline and Racialised Class Identities in Late Nineteenth-Century San Francisco

Spatial narratives of neighbourhood decline – stories about threats to neighbourhood resources – were crucial in reinscribing racialised class boundaries in the late nineteenth century. In 1894, white middle-class property owners in San Francisco’s Powell Street district protested the Board of School Directors’ decision to relocate the city’s only Chinese public school to a condemned building in their neighbourhood, leading to the renovation of the school’s existing structure within Chinatown and new efforts to restrict both Chinese and Japanese urban settlement. I analyse this event to show the importance of space for the race–class intersection. Protesters described the financial, social and moral costs of living near a Chinese school, thereby establishing racial criteria for middle-class identity and mobility. Theories of racial space must consider discursive links between race, class and space because spatial narratives that reproduce economic dominance over racial minorities help to maintain the racial order.     

The Development of Specialized Processing of Own‐Race Faces in Infancy

In this study, we examined developmental changes in infants' processing of own‐ versus other‐race faces. Caucasian American 8‐month‐olds (Experiment 1) and 4‐month‐olds (Experiment 2) were tested in a habituation‐switch procedure designed to assess holistic (attending to the relationship between internal and external features of the face) versus featural (attending to individual features of the face) processing of faces. Eight‐month‐olds demonstrated holistic processing of upright own‐race (Caucasian) faces, but featural processing of upright other‐race (African) faces. Inverted faces were processed featurally, regardless of ethnicity. Four‐month‐olds, however, demonstrated holistic processing of both Caucasian and African upright faces. These results demonstrate that infants' processing of own‐ versus other‐race faces becomes specialized between 4 and 8 months.     

Racial/Ethnic Patterns of Kindergarten School Enrollment in the United States

Enrollment into unequal schools at the start of formal education is an important mechanism for the reproduction of racial/ethnic educational inequalities. We examine whether there are racial/ethnic differences in school enrollment options at kindergarten, the start of schooling. We use nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Birth Cohort (ECLS‐B) to model whether parents seek information about their child's school before enrolling, whether parents move to a location so that a child can attend a certain school, or whether parents enroll their child in a school other than the assigned public school. Results indicate that enrollment patterns differ greatly across race/ethnicity. Whereas Black families are the most likely to seek information on a school's performance, White families are the most likely to use the elite option of choosing their residential location to access a particular school. These differences persist when controlling for socioeconomic status and sociogeographic location. Kindergarten enrollment patterns preserve the advantages of White families, perpetuating racial/ethnic disparities through multiple institutions and contributing to intergenerational processes of social stratification. Research should continue to examine specific educational consequences of housing inequities and residential segregation.     

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.