PSY 620P
April 14, 2015
Social Equity Theory and
Racial-Ethnic Achievement Gaps
Clark McKown
2013
N. Sun-Suslow
Introduction
 School readiness + academic achievement
 Asian Americans > White Americans > Black and Latinos (Jencks & Phillips,
1998; Lee, 2002; Reardon & Galindo, 2009)
 Black-White achievement gaps
 Gap appears to grow over time (Farkas, 2003; Fryer & Levitt, 2004, 2005;
Phillips, Crouse, & Ralph, 1998)
 Influences SES, future jobs, health (Levin, 2009; Reardon & Robinson, 2007;
Adler, Boyce, Chesney, & Cohen, 1994)
 What causes racial differences?
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Genetics (Jensen, 1969)
SES and family (Brooks-Gunn, et al. 2003)
Academic stereotypes (Steele & Aronson, 1995)
Degree of match between home and school environment (Brice-Heath,
1983)
N. Sun-Suslow
Social Equity Theory (SET)
1. makes specific commitments about social processes
that are relevant to understanding the achievement
gap
2. offers casual explanatory framework to explain racialethnic achievement gap
3. generates specific, falsifiable hypotheses
N. Sun-Suslow
Social Processes
 Transactions between individuals (verbal and nonverbal
communication)
 Communications between individuals and social settings;
communicates something of social consequence apart
from (interpersonal interactions)
 Civil rights poster
N. Sun-Suslow
SET propositions :: origins of racialethnic achievement gaps
1. 2 classes of social processes influence racial-ethnic
achievement gaps:
1.
Direct influences – social processes that support
achievement.
2.
Signal influences – cues that communicate negative
expectations about a child’s racial-ethnic group.
N. Sun-Suslow
SET propositions :: origins of racialethnic achievement gaps
2. Signal influences depend on children’s ability to detect
cues signaling a stereotyped expectation. This ability
increases during elemental grades.
3. Social processes affecting achievement gap operate
across a limited range of key developmental settings.
Relevant settings change lawfully with age.
4. Relevant direct and signal influences across
developmental contexts account for achievement gap.
N. Sun-Suslow
Direct influences
 Social processes that promote academic achievement
similarly for all children in all racial-ethnic groups.
 SET  unequal distribution  gap
Direct influences (parenting)
HOME
• WHITES: “authoritative” parenting (high supportiveness + high
demandingness)  better academic, social, and emotional outcomes
(Baumrind & Black, 1967)
• BLACKS: Higher overall neighborhood distress + strict parenting = positive
academic outcomes (Baldwin et al., 1990)
optimal parenting for the development of academic outcomes may
be different for children from different racial-ethnic groups and in
different contexts.
N. Sun-Suslow
Direct Influences (parenting)
 SES accounts for some, but not all, of the Black-White test
score gap among children.
 Maternal warmth and engagement accounted for much of the
gap after SES was accounted for (Brooks-Gunn et al., 1996)
Direct Influences (School)
 High-quality instruction and positive student-teacher
relationships are more available for White than Black
students.
 Between Schools: Black students attend schools where
instructional quality and teacher skills are, on average, lower
(Clotfelter et al., 2004).
 Within Schools: Black students are assigned to less
experienced teachers than White and Asian peers (Lett &
Burkam, 2002).
N. Sun-Suslow
Direct Influences (Peers)
 Stigma associated with academic ambition and White
culture can contribute to Black underachievement
(Austen-Smith & Fryer, 2005).
 Black students are more likely than White peers to report
withholding academic effort because of concern about
how others might view them (Ferguson 2008).
 Some minority students value low-performing peers more
than high-performing peers (Grahm, 2001).
N. Sun-Suslow
Direct Influence (neighborhood)
 Higher neighborhood cohesion, better students
performed in school (Cook et al., 2002).
N. Sun-Suslow
Signal Influences
 Social events that signal to members of negatively
stereotyped groups that are devalued because of their
group membership (Inzlict & Ben-Zeev, 2000).
 Example: Standardized testing
N. Sun-Suslow
Signal Influences
(Routine signal events)
 Characterizing a test as diagnostic of natural ability
(McKown & Strambler, 2009)
 Telling participants directly that members of their group
routinely perform worse than other members of other
gouprs (Aronson et al. 1999)
 Teacher expectations – expect more from Whites and
Asians  better academic performance
N. Sun-Suslow
Signal Influences and Interpretive Skill
 White teacher who is nervous interacting with Black
student example.
 Cultural stereotypes.
N. Sun-Suslow
N. Sun-Suslow
N. Sun-Suslow
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Development depends on a person’s
interactions and transactions with many
levels of environment
▪ These interactions continue throughout the lifespan
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Individual change over time
 Reorganizes
▪ Multiple systems (entire person)
 Successive, sequential
▪ Crawl before you walk
 Non-reversible (stable)
▪ You can’t go back
 Normative
▪ Everyone’s doing it -- but what if everyone’s not doing it?
▪ Continued education (or earlier employment)
▪ marriage, divorce, childrearing,
▪ immigration
 Continues over lifespan?
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Life-span perspective is necessary
 Development includes content of emotions and social
relationships, as well as capacities
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Timing/nature of experience will likely influence
impact
 Effects of neural structure/function
 Psychological sensitivities and vulnerabilities
emerging at that time (e.g., separation)
 Non-normative times (e.g., teen pregnancy)
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Biological perspective on intrinsic and
experiential influences (e.g., puberty)
Continuities and discontinuities are to be expected
 How are change and levels related?
 Abnormal and normal development have
dissimilarities and similarities (e.g., heavy drinking
& schizophrenia)
 Heterotypic and homotypic continuities
 How are form and process related?
 Transitions occur during the course of development
 What transitions are important now?
 What factors of negotiation should we look at?
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Individual differences in meaning of/response
to transitions
 Risk and protective factors (and their
interactions; e.g., the great depression)
 Importance of indirect effects, as well as direct
effects
 Processes and mechanisms involved in
indirect/direct effects
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 How does self-esteem develop?
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Age is an ambiguous variable
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Conduct disturbances exhibit substantial
continuity
 Heterotypic?
 Conduct  Drugs/Alcohol/Anti-social
 Conduct  Emotional disorders
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What factors are important?
 Hyperactivity, poor peer relationships, aggression
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How might early upbringing experiences alter
these pathway(s)?
Adolescent planful competence predicts positive outcomes
occupational success
marital success
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Genetics (e.g., autism)
Altered biological development (e.g.,
pregnancy/birth complications  schiz.)
Behavior/experiences in childhood shape
environment experienced in adult life
▪ Selection of environments and relationships
▪ Elicitation of interactions with others
▪ Elicitation of societal/cultural responses
 Direct and indirect effects on development
▪ Idea of chains of events or cascading effects
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Mechanisms promoting continuity into
adulthood = Mediating factors (cont)
 Cognitive Skills
▪ IQ as protective factor
 Self-related cognitions
▪ Self-Esteem
▪ Self-Efficacy
 Habits, cognitive sets, coping styles
E. Prince
Emerging Adulthood
• Young Adulthood from 18 to 40
• Median ages of marriages
have risen
• Twenty-somethings change
jobs frequently and pursue
post-secondary education
• Premarital sex and
cohabitation are more
common
• Emerging Adulthood is distinct
• Age of identity explorations
• Age of instability
• Self-focused age
• Age of feeling in-between
• Age of possibilities
E. Prince
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Late adolescence
Young Adulthood
Transition to Adulthood
Youth
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“Emerging Adulthood is a new term for a new
phenomenon”
 Do you consider yourself an emerging adult?
 Do you think it is a positive or negative experience for
most people?
 Do you think it is good for society?
E. Prince
Struggles and Benefits of Emerging
Adulthood
• “Quarter-life crisis”?
• Is growing up harder now?
• Identity crises can be stressful
• Finding a job can be stressful
• Mental health issues can arise
• Substance use
• Major depression
• Vulnerable populations at greater
risk
• Decline in depressive symptoms
• Increase in self esteem
• Growing cognitive maturity
E. Prince
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Ambivalence toward taking on adult roles
 Adults are boring, have no new possibilities in life
 Adults have too many responsibilities
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Emerging adults have very high expectations
 True love, amazing job
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Emerging adults engage in riskier behaviors
Very few fail to grow up
By age 30….. 75% Married, 75% 1+ Child, nearly all employed
and financially independent, living alone from their parents
 Extended time to pursue education and job training
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E. Prince
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Can we make a biological
argument for this developmental
stage?
Arnett says several times that
cross-cultural evidence is limited.
Do you expect that this stage is
universal?
Robert Epstein argues in “The
Case Against Adolescence” that a
culture of lowering expectations
for teens has robbed them of their
natural abilities to behave like
adults. Do you think expectations
are lower for emerging adults than
they were before?
E. Prince
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Emerging Adulthood:
 The age period from the late teens through at least the
mid-20s (approximately age 18 – 25)
 Previously “young adulthood,” “transition to adulthood”
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Why do we need a new paradigm?
 Erikson conceptualized “young adulthood” as lasting
from the late teens to age 40!
 More appropriate when most people were married and
in a stable job by the early 20s—no longer the case in
industrialized societies.
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Getting married later
Changing jobs frequently
Pursuing postsecondary and graduate
education
Having sex before marriage
Living together before marriage
But, they are still…
 Accepting responsibility for oneself
 Making independent decisions
 Becoming financially dependent (eventually)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/22/marriage-map_n_4326504.html
http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/pdf/popfacts/PopFacts_2011-1.pdf
The biology of mammalian parenting and its
effect on offspring social development
Rilling & Young
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What biological mechanisms are implicated during birth
and postnatal bonding?
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Parent-infant relationship affects brain development and social
regulation
What can we learn from rodents?
How does that differ from humans?
Ehrlich
Rodent Moms and Dads
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Virgin rodents (and other species) find infant stimuli
aversive
Postpartum rodent moms demonstrate a switch in the
valence of infant stimuli
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One study demonstrated that blood transfusions from a
pregnant to a virgin rodent resulted in increased maternal
responsiveness
Why?
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estrogen and progesterone during pregnancy +
progesterone at birth maximizes brain sensitivity to oxytocin
and prolactin
Rodent Moms and Dads
Rodents v. Sheep
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Oxytocin
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Implicated broadly in social bonding and parenting
Is released centrally during birth, plays a role in transitioning
toward approach behavior in mothers
Rodents are promiscuous parents
Sheep form selective mother-infant bonds
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Oxytocin signaling at play
Human Moms and Dads
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fMRI studies demonstrate activation in mesolimbic
dopamine system
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VTA
Nucleus accumbens
Medial orbitofrontal cortex
Evident for both mothers and fathers
Different from rodents
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Nonparents activate these regions as well
Nulliparous women: nucleus accumbens activation directly
related to baby cuteness
Glocker et al., 2009
Human Moms and Dads
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Infant crying triggers neural responses
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Mesolimbic dopamine system
Anterior insula (empathy)
Prefrontal cortex (emotion regulation)
Human Moms and Dads
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Oxytocin:
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Is positively correlated with affectionate contact and positive
engagement
Studied via intranasal administration in fathers
Genetic studies demonstrate oxytocin’s relationship to
parenting
Paternal Care
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Rats are absentee dads
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Little attention paid to oxytocin in nonhuman dads
Mixed evidence surrounding testosterone
Some mammals: increase in vasopressin
Paternal Care
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Men and their testosterone
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Higher testosterone implicated in mating effort, associated
with
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Less sympathy for other people’s crying babies
Lower paternal caregiving
Lower responsiveness to infants
Testosterone decreases when men become fathers, associated
with
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Increased empathy
Increased frustration tolerance
Decreased sexual motivation (that could compete with parenting
effort)
Social Development
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Licking and grooming (L&G)
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Rats reared by low L&G moms demonstrate low L&G when
they become mothers
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Later-life pair bonding
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Effects seen in mesolimbic dopamine pathway through adulthood
Disrupted by repeated neonatal social isolations
Oxytocin neurons stimulated pharmacologically facilitate
better later-life pair bonding
Paternal Care
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Prairie voles raised with absentee dads show impairments in
pair bonding behavior and less L&G
Social Development
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Research on children raised in orphanages
Focus on amygdala and prefrontal cortex
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Postinstitutionalized children demonstrate
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Larger amygdala volumes
Increased amygdala response to fearful faces
Altered connectivity between amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex
Social Development
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Oxytocin
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Girls who experience childhood neglect or abuse show lower
oxytocin in cerebrospinal fluid as adults
Implicated in attachment
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High levels of oxytocin in securely attached parents might facilitate
more affectionate behavior toward child, who then becomes more
securely attached.
Insecurely attached mothers have lower oxytocin response to their
children
Discussion
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What are some practical implications of this sort of
research?
How can this information be applied to our
understanding of developmental concepts like maternal
sensitivity, coparenting, etc.?
Are we doomed by our upbringings?