Who Gets Ahead and Who Falls Behind During the Transition to High School? Academic Performance at the Intersection of Race/Ethnicity and Gender

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2245208
AutoresApril Sutton (0000-0002-2765-9871, University of California San Diego), Amy G Langenkamp (0000-0003-0327-9855, University of Notre Dame), Chandra Muller (0000-0002-2216-7034, The University of Texas at Austin), Kathryn S Schiller (0000-0003-0125-5008, University at Albany, State University of New York)
Año2019
Volumen66
Número4
Páginas656-656
Fecha de publicación2019-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial Problems (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0037-7791 • E-ISSN: 1533-8533
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/socpro/spy028
PMID29861513
OpenAlexW4243747919
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas9
Referencias citadas60

Academic stratification during educational transitions may be maintained, disrupted, or exacerbated. This study marks the first to use national data to investigate how the transition to high school (re)shapes academic status at the intersection of race/ethnicity and gender. We seek to identify the role of the high school transition in shaping racial/ethnic and gender stratification by contextualizing students' academic declines during the high school transition within the longer window of their educational careers. Using Add Health, we find that white and black boys experience the greatest drops in their grade point averages (GPAs). We also find that the maintenance of high academic grades between the eighth and ninth grades varies across racial/ethnic and gender subgroups; higher-achieving middle school black boys experience the greatest academic declines. Importantly, we find that white and black boys also faced academic declines before the high school transition, whereas their female student peers experienced academic declines only during the transition to high school. We advance current knowledge on educational stratification by identifying the transition to high school as a juncture in which boys' academic disadvantage widens and high-achieving black boys lose their academic status at the high school starting gate. Our study also underscores the importance of adopting an intersectional framework that considers both race/ethnicity and gender. Given the salience of high school grades for students' long-term success, we discuss the implications of this study for racial/ethnic and gender stratification during and beyond high school

Academic achievement · Developmental psychology · Disadvantage · Disadvantaged · Ethnic group · Intersection (aeronautics) · Intersectionality · Political science · Race (biology) · Salience (neuroscience) · Sociology · Transition (genetics) · Transport engineering · Anthropology · Demography · Early Childhood Education and Development · Education, Achievement, and Giftedness · Engineering · Gender Studies · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies · Psychology · Racial and Ethnic Identity Research · School Choice and Performance