Out of proportion
Adam Gamoran, Ana Cristina Collares & Sarah Barfels
American Journal of Sociology, January 2016, Pages 1116-1167
Abstract:
School racial composition has modest effects on test score gaps, but evidence of a longer-term impact is scarce. Perpetuation theory suggests that blacks who attend schools with higher proportions of white classmates may have better job outcomes. Multilevel analyses of two national longitudinal surveys reveal no effects of high school racial composition on occupational status, employment, or annual earnings for blacks or whites. For other minority groups, attending schools with more whites impedes occupational advancement. For all groups, however, school racial composition predicts workplace racial composition: Whites who attend high schools with higher proportions of white students have higher proportions of white coworkers, while nonwhites who attend schools with higher proportions of whites have fewer same-race coworkers. The findings are modest in size but robust to alternative specifications, and sensitivity analyses support a causal interpretation for same-race coworkers. These results support perpetuation theory for workplace composition but not for stratification outcomes.
---------------------
The Causal Effects of Cultural Relevance: Evidence from an Ethnic Studies Curriculum
Thomas Dee & Emily Penner
NBER Working Paper, January 2016
Abstract:
An extensive theoretical and qualitative literature stresses the promise of instructional practices and content aligned with the cultural experiences of minority students. Ethnic studies courses provide a growing but controversial example of such "culturally relevant pedagogy." However, the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of these courses is limited. In this study, we estimate the causal effects of an ethnic studies curriculum piloted in several San Francisco high schools. We rely on a "fuzzy" regression discontinuity design based on the fact that several schools assigned students with eighth-grade GPAs below a threshold to take the course in ninth grade. Our results indicate that assignment to this course increased ninth-grade student attendance by 21 percentage points, GPA by 1.4 grade points, and credits earned by 23. These surprisingly large effects are consistent with the hypothesis that the course reduced dropout rates and suggest that culturally relevant teaching, when implemented in a supportive, high-fidelity context, can provide effective support to at-risk students.
---------------------
David Hekman et al.
Academy of Management Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
We seek to help solve the puzzle of why top-level leaders are disproportionately white men. We suggest that this race- and sex-based status and power gap persists, in part, because ethnic minority and women leaders are discouraged from engaging in diversity-valuing behavior. We hypothesize and test in both field and laboratory samples that ethnic minority or female leaders who engage in diversity-valuing behavior are penalized with worse performance ratings; whereas white or male leaders who engage in diversity-valuing behavior are not penalized for doing so. We find that this divergent effect results from traditional negative race and sex stereotypes (i.e. lower competence judgments) placed upon diversity-valuing ethnic minority and women leaders. We discuss how our findings extend and enrich the vast literatures on the glass ceiling, tokenism, and workplace discrimination.
---------------------
Jason Grissom & Christopher Redding
AERA Open, December 2015
Abstract:
Students of color are underrepresented in gifted programs relative to White students, but the reasons for this underrepresentation are poorly understood. We investigate the predictors of gifted assignment using nationally representative, longitudinal data on elementary students. We document that even among students with high standardized test scores, Black students are less likely to be assigned to gifted services in both math and reading, a pattern that persists when controlling for other background factors, such as health and socioeconomic status, and characteristics of classrooms and schools. We then investigate the role of teacher discretion, leveraging research from political science suggesting that clients of government services from traditionally underrepresented groups benefit from diversity in the providers of those services, including teachers. Even after conditioning on test scores and other factors, Black students indeed are referred to gifted programs, particularly in reading, at significantly lower rates when taught by non-Black teachers, a concerning result given the relatively low incidence of assignment to own-race teachers among Black students.
---------------------
Daniel Storage et al.
PLoS ONE, March 2016
Abstract:
Women and African Americans - groups targeted by negative stereotypes about their intellectual abilities - may be underrepresented in careers that prize brilliance and genius. A recent nationwide survey of academics provided initial support for this possibility. Fields whose practitioners believed that natural talent is crucial for success had fewer female and African American PhDs. The present study seeks to replicate this initial finding with a different, and arguably more naturalistic, measure of the extent to which brilliance and genius are prized within a field. Specifically, we measured field-by-field variability in the emphasis on these intellectual qualities by tallying - with the use of a recently released online tool - the frequency of the words "brilliant" and "genius" in over 14 million reviews on RateMyProfessors.com, a popular website where students can write anonymous evaluations of their instructors. This simple word count predicted both women's and African Americans' representation across the academic spectrum. That is, we found that fields in which the words "brilliant" and "genius" were used more frequently on RateMyProfessors.com also had fewer female and African American PhDs. Looking at an earlier stage in students' educational careers, we found that brilliance-focused fields also had fewer women and African Americans obtaining bachelor's degrees. These relationships held even when accounting for field-specific averages on standardized mathematics assessments, as well as several competing hypotheses concerning group differences in representation. The fact that this naturalistic measure of a field's focus on brilliance predicted the magnitude of its gender and race gaps speaks to the tight link between ability beliefs and diversity.
---------------------
Lindsay Fox
AERA Open, December 2015
Abstract:
I present new evidence on the effects of having a same-sex or same-race teacher on two salient outcomes: teacher expectations for postsecondary attainment and teacher recommendations for advanced courses. My identification strategy conditions on all subject-invariant student traits to provide causal estimates of the effects using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002. Across the full sample, there is little evidence of an effect of having a same-sex or a same-race teacher on expectations or recommendations. However, I find surprisingly large effects for Black students on teacher expectations. For these students, the effect of a same-race teacher on teacher expectations to complete more than high school is between 11 and 17 percentage points. This effect is at least 70% of the White-Black race gap in teacher expectations.
---------------------
Jeffrey Weinstein
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
I use data surrounding public school redistricting to study how school racial compositions affect neighborhood racial compositions. This redistricting followed from the end of court-ordered busing for racial desegregation, significantly changing the racial composition of the assigned school for many neighborhoods. Over a 5-year period, the impact of an increase in the percent black of the assigned elementary school on the percent black of the neighborhood was positive. The effects increased over time, consistent with a simple model of short-run neighborhood racial dynamics. These results have implications for potential effects of school racial desegregation policy changes on neighborhood racial compositions.
---------------------
Siwei Cheng
American Sociological Review, February 2016, Pages 29-56
Abstract:
A sizable literature examines whether and why marriage affects men's and women's wages. This study advances current research in two ways. First, whereas most prior studies treat the effect of marriage as time-invariant, I examine how the wage effect of marriage unfolds over the life course. Second, whereas prior work often focuses on the population-average effect of marriage or is limited to some particular gender or racial group, I examine the intersection of gender and race in the effect of marriage. Analyzing data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, I find that the marriage wage premium grows steadily and at a similar pace among white and black men. The marriage wage premium declines toward negative among white women, yet it grows steadily among black women. Furthermore, measured work experience explains a substantial amount of the wage premium among black men, yet it has little explanatory power among white men, pointing to the importance of unobserved factors in white men's marriage premium. Changes in work experience negatively affect married white women's wages, yet they positively affect married black women's wages, pointing to the important differences between black and white families.
---------------------
Separate and Unequal in the Labor Market: Human Capital and the Jim Crow Wage Gap
Celeste Carruthers & Marianne Wanamaker
NBER Working Paper, January 2016
Abstract:
The gap between black and white earnings is a longstanding feature of the United States labor market. Competing explanations attribute different weight to wage discrimination and access to human capital. Using new data on local school quality, we find that human capital played a predominant role in determining 1940 wage and occupational status gaps in the South despite the effective disenfranchisement of blacks, entrenched racial discrimination in civic life, and lack of federal employment protections. The 1940 conditional black-white wage gap coincides with the higher end of the range of estimates from the post-Civil Rights era. We estimate that a truly "separate but equal" school system would have reduced wage inequality by 40 - 51 percent.
---------------------
Scott Savage & Ryan Seebruck
Sociological Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine how race affects the employment status of subordinates following a job change by their immediate supervisors. We test whether racial homophily between a subordinate and a supervisor affects the odds of being let go. We also consider whether a racial match between an incoming head coach and assistant affects whether assistants retain their assistant coaching position. Data for these analyses come from a unique data set that explores what happens to 704 NCAA Division I college basketball assistant coaches after the head coach leaves the school. Logistic regression analyses confirm the benefit of working for a white head coach as this decreases the likelihood of being let go, compared to more positive outcomes such as following the coach to a new school, being internally promoted or retained after the head coach's departure. Furthermore, racial homophily with incoming head coaches insulates subordinates from having to search for new employment by increasing the likelihood of assistants being retained.
---------------------
What's in a (School) Name? Racial Discrimination in Higher Education Bond Markets
Casey Dougal et al.
Duke University Working Paper, February 2016
Abstract:
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) pay more in underwriting fees to issue tax-exempt bonds, compared to similar, non-HBCU schools. This appears to reflect higher deadweight costs of finding willing buyers: the effect is three times larger in the Deep South, where racial animus has historically been the highest. School attributes or credit quality explain almost none of the effects. For example, identical differences are observed between HBCU and non-HBCU bonds: 1) having AAA credit ratings, and 2) insured by the same company, even prior to the Financial Crisis of 2008. HBCU-issued bonds are also more expensive to trade in the secondary market, and when they do, sit in dealer inventory longer.
---------------------
People notice and use an applicant's religion in job suitability evaluations
Debbie Van Camp, Lloyd Sloan & Amanda ElBassiouny
Social Science Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
Social identity theory suggests that people use social categories such as race and gender as the basis of interpersonal judgments and demonstrate biases favoring their ingroups, and that this discrimination against out-groups includes hiring and other personnel decisions. This research examines whether, in the context of other information, participants will use a person's religion and show typical intergroup biases often seen between racial groups. One hundred and seventy-five Black Christian participants viewed fictional job applicants of different religions (Christian/Muslim/atheist) and races (Black/White). Thirty-two percent of participants explicitly reported using the applicant's religion (but seldom reported using their race) as a source of evaluation and showed a consistent preference for Christian (ingroup) over Muslim and atheist (outgroup) applicants. In contrast, those who did not acknowledge using religion showed some racial ingroup bias but none for religion. This research has implications for workplace discrimination, hiring practices, and racial and religious group relations.
---------------------
Affirming the Interdependent Self: Implications for Latino Student Performance
Rebecca Covarrubias, Sarah Herrmann & Stephanie Fryberg
Basic and Applied Social Psychology, January/February 2016, Pages 47-57
Abstract:
We examined whether culture-relevant affirmations that focus on family (i.e., family affirmation) would enhance performance for Latino students compared to affirmations that focus on the individual (i.e., self-affirmation). In Study 1 (N = 82), Latino middle school students exposed to a family affirmation outperformed Latino students exposed to a self-affirmation. In Study 2 (N = 269), Latino college students exposed to a family affirmation outperformed Latino students exposed to a self-affirmation and outperformed European American students across conditions. European American students performed equally well across conditions. The findings suggest that culture provides a meaningful framework for developing effective classroom strategies.