Lessons learned about collaborative evaluation using the Capacity for Applying Project Evaluation (CAPE) framework with school and district leaders

Schools, districts, and state-level educational organizations are experiencing a great shift in the way they do the business of education. This shift focuses on accountability, specifically through the expectation of the effective utilization of evaluative-focused efforts to guide and support decisions about educational program implementation. In as much, education leaders need specific guidance and training on how to plan, implement, and use evaluation to critically examine district and school-level initiatives. One specific effort intended to address this need is through the Capacity for Applying Project Evaluation (CAPE) framework. The CAPE framework is composed of three crucial components: a collection of evaluation resources; a professional development model; and a conceptual framework that guides the work to support evaluation planning and implementation in schools and districts. School and district teams serve as active participants in the professional development and ultimately as formative evaluators of their own school or district-level programs by working collaboratively with evaluation experts. The CAPE framework involves the school and district staff in planning and implementing their evaluation. They are the ones deciding what evaluation questions to ask, which instruments to use, what data to collect, and how and to whom results should be reported. Initially this work is done through careful scaffolding by evaluation experts, where supports are slowly pulled away as the educators gain experience and confidence in their knowledge and skills as evaluators. Since CAPE engages all stakeholders in all stages of the evaluation, the philosophical intentions of these efforts to build capacity for formative evaluation strictly aligns with the collaborative evaluation approach.     

‘What about the couple?’ Interracial marriage and psychological distress

We explore the association between racial composition of couples—that is, whether they are interracial or homogamous—and the psychological distress of their members, as measured in a screening scale for non-specific psychological distress. We use a pooled 1997–2001 National Health Interview Survey sample of the married and cohabiting population of the United States. We compare the odds of distress for interracial vs. same race married/cohabiting adults. There are several key findings. Interracial marriage is associated with increases in severe distress for Native American men, white women, and for Hispanic men and women married to non-white spouses, compared to endogamous members of the same groups. Higher rates of distress are observed for intermarried persons with African American or Native American husbands or wives, and for women with Hispanic husbands. Lower socioeconomic status explains approximately half of the increased distress experienced by white women, while higher socioeconomic status partially suppresses increases in distress for Hispanic men and women.     

Women's Wages: Cohort Differences in Returns to Education and Training Over Time*

Objective. This article examines the effects of education and work‐related training on wage‐growth trajectories for two cohorts of women as they aged from their early 20s and 30s into their early 30 s and 40 s. I test whether occupational training compensates for an earlier lack of education, thereby decreasing earnings inequality over time within cohorts. Because the broader economic context may influence the relationship between wages, education, and training, I test the assumption that the experiences of a given cohort may be generalized to others. Methods. Following NLS Young Women between 1977 and 1987 and NLSY79 Women between 1988 and 1998, growth‐curve analyses test whether returns to investments in human capital vary over time, across and within cohorts. Results. Women who did not update their skills over time experienced stagnation or declines in real wages, leading to growing wage inequality within education levels. However, women without a high school degree who engaged in on‐the‐job training experienced the greatest returns to training, thus reducing the initial education‐based wage gap. Conclusion. Education and training in adulthood can deflect the accumulation of disadvantage, but can also solidify an already uneven distribution of resources across social strata.     

Does Multiracial Matter? A Study of Racial Disparities in Self-Rated Health

How do self-identified multiracial adults fit into documented patterns of racial health disparities? We assess whether the health status of adults who view themselves as multiracial is distinctive from that of adults who maintain a single-race identity, by using a seven-year (2001–2007) pooled sample of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). We explore racial differences in self-rated health between whites and several single and multiracial adults with binary logistic regression analyses and investigate whether placing these groups into a self-reported “best race” category alters patterns of health disparities. We propose four hypotheses that predict how the self-rated health status of specific multiracial groups compares with their respective component single-race counterparts, and we find substantial complexity in that no one explanatory model applies to all multiracial combinations. We also find that placing multiracial groups into a single “best race” category likely obscures the pattern of health disparities for selected groups because some multiracial adults (e.g., American Indians) tend to identify with single-race groups whose health experience they do not share.     

Homogamy by education and migration status in Monterrey,Mexico: changes and continuities over time

This paper reviews changes in homogamy by migration status and educational level in Monterrey, Mexico, through the analysis of marriage patterns for two cohorts of men born in 1905–1934 and 1940–1969. Results show a significant increase in educational homogamy, as well as in homogamy by rural origins. The changes suggest that education has played an increasingly important role in the process of mate selection, although certain particularistic characteristics, such as being a rural immigrant, are still important in marriage formation. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for the relationship between homogamy and social stratification.

Community Resources in a Diverse City: Supermarket Location and Emerging Racial Hierarchies

Disparities are pronounced along racial/ethnic lines in the USA. Convention draws our attention to blacks and whites, but increased racial/ethnic diversity in the USA requires shifts in that focus. We contribute to studies of racial/ethnic stratification by interrogating the association between racial/ethnic composition and supermarket location in Houston, Texas. First, we assess the benefits of a new approach to defining the racial/ethnic composition of local areas, an approach that acknowledges an increasingly complex racial/ethnic demography. Second, we contribute to our understanding of emerging racial/ethnic stratification hierarchies by examining the position of the racial/ethnic composition categories relative to one another. Our results suggest a persistent link between racial/ethnic composition and supermarket location, which highlights entrenched black disadvantage coupled with malleable middle positions for Hispanic areas. The associated stratification hierarchy is gradual in nature, yet there is evidence supporting arguments that the USA is moving toward a tri-racial system.     

Effects of a sleep hygiene text message intervention on sleep in college students

Objective: To test the effectiveness of a text-message intervention to promote sleep hygiene to improve sleep in young adult college students. Participants: A convenience sample of undergraduate students from one Southwestern university (n = 96), 18–26 years old, recruited in August 2015. Methods: A 2-group pretest-posttest experimental design assigned participants to receive biweekly text messages about sleep hygiene or healthy behaviors for 6 weeks. Survey questions addressed sleep knowledge, sleep hygiene, self-efficacy for sleep hygiene, and sleep quality at baseline and posttest. Results: Though not significant, sleep quality, sleep hygiene, and sleep knowledge improved in both groups. Conclusions: Self-efficacy for sleep hygiene is a modifiable factor that may serve to improve sleep quality. Sleep quality improved in both groups. Text messaging is a feasible approach to delivering an intervention to promote healthy behaviors among young adults.     

Does a Self-Affirmation Intervention Reduce Stereotype Threat in Black and Hispanic High Schools?

The risk of confirming negative stereotypes about one’s social group, known as stereotype threat, depresses academic achievement among students of color and contributes to racial gaps in achievement. Some work finds that stereotype threat may be alleviated through self-affirmation exercises, translating into improved performance among students vulnerable to threat. However, this work has been conducted primarily in settings where students of color represent a relatively small segment of the student population. The current study explores whether this intervention is efficacious in schools where students of color are the majority. Through a randomized controlled trial of 886 students in three high schools (one predominantly black, one predominantly Hispanic, and one mixed race school), we administered self-affirmation exercises over the course of an academic year. We find no clear evidence that self-affirmation promoted higher standardized test scores or higher grades within the sample. The null findings highlight the complex nature of academic challenges in segregated contexts and raise important questions about the nature of stereotype thereat in such contexts. Importantly, this suggests that solely enhancing self-integrity may not be sufficient to close academic race-based gaps.     

Is discrimination an equal opportunity risk?: racial experiences, socioeconomic status, and health status among black and white adults

Using the 2004 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we explore the relationship between racial awareness, perceived discrimination, and self-rated health among black (n = 5,902) and white (n = 28,451) adults. We find that adjusting for group differences in racial awareness and discrimination, in addition to socioeconomic status, explains the black-white gap in self-rated health. However, logistic regression models also find evidence for differential vulnerability among black and whites adults, based on socioeconomic status. While both groups are equally harmed by emotional and/or physical reactions to race-based treatment, the negative consequences of discriminatory experiences for black adults are exacerbated by their poorer socioeconomic standing. In contrast, the association between racial awareness and self-rated health is more sensitive to socioeconomic standing among whites. Poorer health is more likely to occur among whites when they reflect at least daily on their own racial status-but only when it happens in tandem with mid-range educational achievement, or among homemakers.     

Lost in transition: Illicit substance use and services receipt among at-risk youth in the child welfare system

This study examined the use of mental health and substance abuse services among adolescents in the child welfare system (CWS) who reported use of illicit substances. 1004 adolescents age 11–15 years at baseline were followed for 5–7 years, over five waves of data collection. Shortly after the investigation for maltreatment (baseline), 69.1% of youths using illicit substances received mental health and/or substance abuse outpatient specialty services. By the last follow-up, during the transition to adulthood, only 21.5% of young adults using illicit substances received outpatient specialty services. Youth who used illicit substances were more likely to receive outpatient and inpatient specialty services than non-users at the time of contact with the CWS (mostly baseline), but this difference faded over the follow-up period. By 5–7 years follow-up, there was no significant difference in specialty services receipt for illicit substances users versus non-users. Predictors of outpatient service use at most waves were having Medicaid, mental health needs, and having recently seen a school counselor or primary care physician. Among illicit substance users transitioning to adulthood, African American youths were less likely to receive outpatient specialty services than White youths. These findings reveal a need for more attention to illicit substances use among youth in the CWS, better cross agency integration, and special attention to the needs of transition-age youth to better connect them with services as they age out of the CWS.