Giving Compass' Take:
- Hannah Vinueza McClellan examines research about how racial and socioeconomic status disparities influence academic achievement gaps.
- What are the root causes of these gaps in academic achievement? How can funders help build more equitable education systems to close these gaps?
- Learn more about key issues in education and how you can help.
- Search our Guide to Good for nonprofits focused on education in your area.
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Among other things, the study looked at which SES factors best explain existing academic achievement gaps, along with disparities among high-achieving students. The authors analyzed two sets of data from the federal Early Child Longitudinal Study, from 1998-99 and 2010-11.
The study’s resulting analysis shows that “a broad set of family SES factors explains a substantial portion of racial academic achievement gaps: between 34 and 64 percent of the Black-white gap and between 51 and 77 percent of the Hispanic-white gap, depending on the subject and grade level.”
“Racial achievement gaps in schools are well documented and remain a significant cause of concern in education. Troubling too is that the role of socioeconomic disparities in mediating these gaps remains unresolved,” the institute’s website says. “While SES accounts for much of the racial achievement disparities, closing these gaps requires a comprehensive approach, including improving school quality and supporting family stability.”
The institute’s study used a broad set of measures of family background, including parents’ education, family finances, household structure, and “household opportunity factors.” The latter measure refers to academic, enrichment, and familial activities.
Key Findings About the Factors Contributing to Academic Achievement Gaps
- Racial achievement gaps decrease significantly when controlling for the SES factors (though SES explains more of the Hispanic-white gap than the Black-white gap).
- Of all the SES factors analyzed, household income best explains the Black-white academic achievement gap and mother’s education best explains the Hispanic-white gap.
- SES indicators, and the extent to which they explain racial/ethnic academic achievement gaps, are stable over time (1998-99 and 2010-11).
Read the full article about academic achievement gaps by Hannah Vinueza McClellan at The 74.