Talia Boxman, Kiera Ingalls, Robin Koogle,
Nathaly Ossa, and Gaby Vargas
Dr. Bliss
EDF 5481
October 1, 2013
Academic Achievement Differences
Amongst Students of Varying Socioeconomic Status
in the United States: An Annotated Bibliography
Easton-Brooks, D., & Davis, A. (2007). Wealth, traditional socioeconomic indicators, and the
achievement debt. Journal of Negro Education, 76, 530-541.
The authors of this study examined whether wealth and socioeconomic
components predicted the academic outcomes of African American and European
American students in the United States. After reviewing the current literature on
socioeconomic status (SES) and academic achievement, the authors decided to integrate
the influence of wealth on academic achievement. They first analyzed the relationship of
SES components to multiple measures of wealth by running a factor analysis. The factor
analysis provided the authors with combinations of SES indicators and wealth that were
internally consistent. These combinations were then used as independent variables to
account for the differences in academic outcomes for African American and European
American students.
The authors of this study stated two hypotheses. The first was that wealth
accounts for the major difference in achievement of African American high school
students versus European American students, after controlling for the components of
SES. The second hypothesis was that wealth, rather than SES and engagement, better
explain a portion of the achievement gap between African American and European
American students.
Researchers collected data from a public data file: the NELS:88. The NELS:88
provides a nationally representative sample of public and private school students
surveyed in 1990, 1992, 1994, 2000, and 2004 by the National Center for Education
Statistics (NCES) and the U.S. Department of Education. The authors of this study took a
narrower sample of the NELS:88 which consisted of 1,302 African American and 6,362
European American high school students who were in 10th grade in 1990 and attended
public school from 10th grade through 12th grade. (The authors decided to ignore the
private school data due to the fact that the majority of African American students
attended public schools.) Participants provided information related to student
background, family background, community, school experiences, self-reported test
scores, and actual test scores. Parents of each student were also surveyed (not accounted
for in sample size), which provided the data for the components of SES and wealth
indicators.
Researchers broke SES into the following components: household income and
parents’ occupational prestige and education, respectively. The researchers then defined
wealth as the net worth of a household. Wealth was measured by variables that
established the existence of liquid and illiquid assets. Once the components of SES were
established and wealth was defined, the researchers began statistically analyzing the data.
The dependent variable was achievement. It was measured by NELS:88’s standard test
composite variable (a combination of standardized mathematics and standardized reading
scores). The independent variables were the components of SES plus the indicators of
wealth. Next researchers conducted an ordinary least squares regression to test both
hypotheses.
Results in this study showed that the variables of wealth were significant
predictors of achievement for African American students but not for European American
students. In addition, results showed that a difference in achievement was associated with
race, an effect size of 0.53, and explained 4.6% of the variance in achievement. The
interaction of SES with race predictors explained 19.2% of the variance in achievement
and the effect size associated with race reduced to 0.48. The addition of wealth variables
explained an additional 0.4% and the effect size associated with race reduced to 0.47.
Thus this study concludes that SES components do not solely account for the academic
outcomes of African American students as it does for European Americans. Instead
wealth, rather than SES alone, seems to be the best predictor of academic success among
African Americans.
The authors of this study suggest further research to be conducted on the
influence of wealth on various forms of academic experiences. Future studies can provide
schools and policy makers with a better understanding of the relationship between
economics and the academic performance of minority students, specifically African
American students.
Fejgin, N. (1995). Factors contributing to the academic excellence of American Jewish and
Asian students. Sociology of Education, 68, 18-30.
doi: 10.2307/2112761
This article studies the specific factors that support the relationship between
Jewish and Asian American students and their demonstrated academic excellence. The
author’s thesis proposes that the parents of Jewish American students use a combination
of socioeconomic and cultural influences in unique ways to foster academic success and
human capital in their children. The author arrives at her theoretical base by examining
and finding limitations in previous literature aiming to explain the contributing factors to
academic gaps between different racial-ethnic groups. The author claims that while
previous studies have discovered certain background measures to explain gaps among
Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites, these specific background measures still do not provide
strong support for Asian American students’ high academic achievement. Furthermore,
the author argues that previous studies on this topic have altogether overlooked the
academic achievement of the Jewish American ethnic group. These findings led the
author to research why Jewish American students achieve greater academic success than
other groups and also how their academic excellence compares specifically to that of
Asian Americans.
In seeking explanations to the previously stated research questions, the author
combines the notions from the cultural approach and the socioeconomic approach to
deduce two hypotheses. The first hypothesis reasons that “gaps in the achievement of
Jewish students and students of other racial-ethnic groups should persist, even after some
socioeconomic measures are controlled” (Fejgin, 1995). The second hypothesis states that
“adjusted gaps of Jewish students and students of other racial-ethnic groups should be
reduced once specific parental actions are controlled” (Fejgin, 1995). In order to test
these hypotheses the study utilized various data collection and analysis methods. The
study obtained secondary data on background variables from a specific sample of Jewish
American 10th grade students who were participants in a larger scale study, the National
Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS:88). The study also utilized the questionnaire
method to collect data about intervening variables by distributing surveys to students,
parents, teachers, and schools. Finally, the study measured its dependent variables of
academic success by looking at the students’ standardized achievement scores on
mathematics and English reading comprehension tests.
The analysis methods in this study included the use of analysis of variance and
multiple linear regression. The analysis of variance displayed means and standard
deviations of several variables relating to academic performance, family background, and
student’s behavior amongst Jewish, Asian, White, and Black students. The multiple linear
regression displayed the individual effect of each background and intervening variable on
standardized achievement scores by presenting them in four different steps.
The results of this study show that socioeconomic variables are only partially
account for the variance in the gaps in academic achievement amongst various racialethnic groups and are completely removed when comparing the academic success of
Jewish and Asian American students. Therefore, the author’s findings support her thesis
that “Jewish parents not only have more resources, but use them in specific ways to
enhance their children’s educational achievement” (Fejgin, 1995). With regards to Asian
American students, the author suggests that their similar academic achievement to Jewish
American students’ of comparable socioeconomic backgrounds is likewise related to their
parents’ specific methods of enhancing their academic success, although she
acknowledges that the exact details of these methods are still unknown by her and the
current literature. Alternatively, the author stresses that specific methods used by Jewish
American parents to encourage academic achievement in their children are known, such
as choosing to send their children to private schools and/or using award systems directed
at motivating educational effort.
The implications of this study extend to the domain of increasing academic
excellence among all ethnic-racial groups. The study demonstrates that academic
achievement gaps are only partially explained by socioeconomic factors and provides
evidence that parental values, attitudes, and socialization models also contribute to
students’ likelihood to attain academic achievement. The results discussed in this study
can lead to future research on the most effective parental factors, outside of SES, that
contribute to students’ academic success. Specifically, this study should encourage future
research to examine how the techniques used by Jewish and Asian American parents can
be used as a model for other racial-ethnic groups; thus, this model, if successfully learned
and applied, can serve to decrease the gaps in academic achievement among these various
groups in future generations.
Irving, M. A., & Hudley, C. (2008). Cultural identification and academic achievement among
African American males. Journal of Advanced Academics, 19, 676-698.
doi: 10.4219/jaa-2008-833
It is well documented that many African American males (especially in urban
settings) have persistent educational achievement issues such as academic failure, high
dropout rates, low college enrollment, overrepresentation in special education classes,
and low standardized test scores. This study investigates the relationship connecting
cultural mistrust, oppositional cultural attitudes, and value for educational outcomes with
academic outcome expectations and actual academic achievement. The researchers based
their hypotheses on the notions proposed by earlier studies that suggested that lowincome parents questioned the utility of the education their children were receiving in a
way that reduced their willingness to trust and fully take part in it. They examined five
hypotheses regarding variables of identity (including socioeconomic status) and academic
achievement. Participants consisted of 115 African American males enrolled in 11th and
12th grade in Southern California. At the time of the study, the school was urban and
multiethnic. Students were chosen from multiple achievement levels. The data was
obtained using surveys with responses arranged on a 4-point Likert scale. They found that
"cultural mistrust is a significant predictor of academic achievement" (p. ) because their
findings revealed an inverse relationship between African American males' cultural
mistrust and academic outcome expectations—whereas expectations are typically related
to actual academic achievement. They also found that socioeconomic status was a strong
predictor of academic achievement, at least in the context of this study. In their
conclusion, they admit that their findings—while mostly supportive of the proposed view
that stimulated their research—might not be generalizable to African American students
in other communities. Further research in other communities either nearby or even farther
away could provide more direction to the possible correlation that could be drawn for a
greater population of African American males outside of this area of Southern California.
Tucker-Drob, E. M., & Harden, K. P. (2012). Intellectual interest mediates
gene × socioeconomic status interaction on adolescent academic achievement. Child
Development, 83, 743–757. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01721.x
This study intended to research the role of intellectual interest in the interaction of
genetic influences and socioeconomic status (SES) on academic status. More specifically,
the study tested whether SES acts as a moderating variable in the relationship between
genetic variance in intellectual interest and academic achievement.
Transactional models of cognitive development conjecture that individuals select
(and are selected into) environments that are increasingly congruent with their own
genetically influenced traits. As a result of this, environments that are compatible with
one’s genotype are most likely to be consistent and recurring over the course of
development. These models assume that recurring interactions with high-quality
environments are necessary for the realization of genetic potential for healthy cognitive
outcomes, and that macro environmental contexts affect the availability and quality of
environmental experiences important for cognition.
Based on transactional models of cognitive development, the authors predicted
that the strength of the mechanisms relating interest, achievement, and proximal
environments would differ systematically with SES. They hypothesized that only in high
SES circumstances would genetic interest and motivation become coupled with
achievement.
The current study used data from a sample of 777 high school twin pairs from the
National Merit Twin Study. Three variables were measured for the purpose of this study.
The National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (NMSQT)—measuring English usage,
mathematics usage, social science reading, natural science reading, and word usage—was
used to determine academic achievement. Intellectual interest was measured with the
Intellectual Efficiency scale of the California Psychological Inventory. SES was
determined by parental report of family pretax income in a written questionnaire. The
data was analyzed using a series of four structural equation models of increasing
complexity.
Statistically significant results indicated that the variance in academic
achievement explained by genes varied positively with SES. In the context of a bivariate
model, this effect could be accounted for by stronger influences of the genes for
intellectual interest on academic achievement in higher SES homes. These results are
consistent with the hypothesis that higher SES allows children to better convert their
intellectual interest into academic achievement through a process of gene–environment
correlation.
The results from this study suggest that future research should measure a wide
variety of personality, ability, and achievement constructs in order to examine how these
constructs mediate heritable variation in one another. Results also point towards using
specific measures of both macro environments and proximal environments. An additional
area for future research resulting from this study will be testing the hypotheses of this
study using longitudinal data.
You’ve done a pretty good job here. The annotations were clear and easy to read and
were generally well written. You displayed a good grasp of APA referencing style, as
well. Just fix up the suggested areas and save the file for submission with the second set
of four references. You need not resubmit this file at this time.
LBB