Samuel R Luca
Biographic Data
| ID | 139660 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Samuel R Luca |
| GIVEN NAMES | Samuel R |
| FAMILY NAME | Luca |
| SIGNATURE | LUCA S R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Berkeley |
| ORCID | 0009-0001-7813-5592 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 671 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Health insurance in the United States
The theory of Effectively Maintained Inequality (EMI) (Lucas, 2001) posits that goods have both quantitative (how much?) and qualitative (what kind?) dimensions. Coupled with the hypothesized mechanisms of EMI, this simple observation greatly complicates research and policy development concerning inequality. First applied to explain educational inequality in the United States, evidence for the theory has been found in education systems in over 20…
Mare’s model of education transitions
Race/Ethnicity over Fifty Years of Structural Differentiation in K-12 Schooling
In the United States, equally performing students of different racial/ethnic groups may have different prospects for enrollment in rigorous curricular positions. Over time, the processes and operation of curricular systems have changed, and those changes may matter for the existence of racial/ethnic differences in access. We first outline dimensions that distinguish forms of in-school structural differentiation. We then use those dimensions to de…
An Archaeology of Effectively Maintained Inequality Theory
Effectively maintained inequality (EMI) was proposed as a general theory of inequality. While the theory flows from a decades-long tradition of studying social background effects on educational attainment, it also has resonances with theories in other domains. After conveying the tenets of EMI, I consider its proposed mechanisms and patterned implications for inequality. Given this foundation, I identify affinities between EMI and selected theore…
Effectively Maintained Inequality in Education
Seven Principles for Assessing Effectively Maintained Inequality
Effectively maintained inequality (EMI) was proposed as a general theory of inequality, but the theory flows from a decades-long tradition of studying social background effects on educational attainment. After an orienting discussion of several historic challenges of the study of social background effects on educational inequality, proposed and adopted solutions to those challenges, and subsequent critiques of those solutions, we offer and justif…
First- and Second-Order Methodological Developments from the Coleman Report
Equality of Educational Opportunity was a watershed for sociological engagement with public policy, yet the questions the project addressed drew attention to several challenging methodological issues. Statistical advances, such as the multilevel model, were important first-order developments from the Coleman Report. Second-order developments, however, may be far less visible but perhaps even more important. Second-order developments of the Colema…
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
Sociologists use data from experiments, ethnographies, survey interviews, in-depth interviews, archives, and administrative records. Analysts disagree, however, on whether probability sampling is necessary for each method. To address the issue, the author introduces eight dimensions of data collection, places each method within those dimensions, and uses that resource to assess the necessity and feasibility of probability sampling for each method…
Qualitative Comparative Analysis in Critical Perspective
Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) appears to offer a systematic means for case-oriented analysis. The method not only offers to provide a standardized procedure for qualitative research but also serves, to some, as an instantiation of deterministic methods. Others, however, contest QCA because of its deterministic lineage. Multiple other issues surrounding QCA, such as its response to measurement error and its ability to ascertain asymmetric…
Withdrawn
A neo-classical education transitions approach
New directions in education transitions research
Stratification Theory, Socioeconomic Background, and Educational Attainment
Three proposals explicate the social origins/education transitions association. Maximally maintained inequality (MMI) (Raftery and Hout 1993) claims the association declines only at transitions high origin persons universally or nearly universally make. Relative risk aversion (RRA) (Breen and Goldthorpe 1997) suggests broader inequality reduction is possible and depends on changing costs and norms. Effectively maintained inequality (EMI) (Lucas 2…
How Changes in Families and Schools Are Related to Trends in Black-White Test Scores
Through several decades of research, a great deal has been written about trends in black-white test scores and the factors that may explain the gaps in different subject areas. Only a few studies have examined the changing relationships between gaps in students' test scores and family and school measures in nationally representative data over several periods. This article builds on this previous work and addresses some of its limitations by analy…
Race and track location in U.S. public schools
Unequal Chances
Law, Race, and Education in the United States
After describing many of the features that structure educational opportunity, and how race interacts with these structures, we briefly relate a set of important orienting perspectives on the law-race relation. We divide issues of education into three categories: (a) inherently racialized aspects of law and education; (b) aspects of education that intersect race and the law; and (c) emerging issues in race, education, and the law. Treating desegre…
Sociodemographic Diversity, Correlated Achievement, and De Facto Tracking
De facto tracking-the association between students' courses in disparate subjects, regardless of the decline of institutional mechanisms that organized de jure tracking-is a contested feature of secondary schools. Some analysts imply that de facto tracking arises simply because students who do well in one area often do well in other areas. Other analysts contend that pronounced tracking systems maintain racial, ethnic, and social-class segregatio…
Tracking Inequality
What has happened since formal tracking was dismantled in U.S. high schools? In this provocative book, SFamuel Lucas reveals that many unintended consequences actually served to transform and submerge a stubborn system of in-school inequality. Drawing on nationally representative data and highly sophisticated methodologies, Lucas examines how the contemporary curricular structure works, including the scope of the structure, mobility within the st…
Race, Class, and Tournament Track Mobility
Early research on track mobility suggested that students follow a tournament mobility process, but more recent research has failed to support the tournament mobility metaphor. These analyses attempted to discern the overall pattern of mobility. This study used data from High School and Beyond to investigate track mobility for four different disaggregated racial-class groups. By disaggregating the data, the authors were able to determine whether a…
Effectively Maintained Inequality
This article proposes a general explanation for social background‐related inequality. Educational attainment research indicates that the later an education transition, the lower the social background effect. While some suggest life course changes in the parent‐child relationship or between‐family competition explain this pattern, others contend the result is a statistical artifact, and that the analytic strategy presupposes agents are irrationall…
Response to Nielsen's Review of Inequality by Design
Readings on Equal Education
A New Genre
Happy Days are Here Again
Effectively Maintained Inequality
This article proposes a general explanation for social background‐related inequality. Educational attainment research indicates that the later an education transition, the lower the social background effect. While some suggest life course changes in the parent‐child relationship or between‐family competition explain this pattern, others contend the result is a statistical artifact, and that the analytic strategy presupposes agents are irrationall…
Sociodemographic Diversity, Correlated Achievement, and De Facto Tracking
De facto tracking-the association between students' courses in disparate subjects, regardless of the decline of institutional mechanisms that organized de jure tracking-is a contested feature of secondary schools. Some analysts imply that de facto tracking arises simply because students who do well in one area often do well in other areas. Other analysts contend that pronounced tracking systems maintain racial, ethnic, and social-class segregatio…
Qualitative Comparative Analysis in Critical Perspective
Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) appears to offer a systematic means for case-oriented analysis. The method not only offers to provide a standardized procedure for qualitative research but also serves, to some, as an instantiation of deterministic methods. Others, however, contest QCA because of its deterministic lineage. Multiple other issues surrounding QCA, such as its response to measurement error and its ability to ascertain asymmetric…
Stratification Theory, Socioeconomic Background, and Educational Attainment
Three proposals explicate the social origins/education transitions association. Maximally maintained inequality (MMI) (Raftery and Hout 1993) claims the association declines only at transitions high origin persons universally or nearly universally make. Relative risk aversion (RRA) (Breen and Goldthorpe 1997) suggests broader inequality reduction is possible and depends on changing costs and norms. Effectively maintained inequality (EMI) (Lucas 2…
Race and track location in U.S. public schools
How Changes in Families and Schools Are Related to Trends in Black-White Test Scores
Through several decades of research, a great deal has been written about trends in black-white test scores and the factors that may explain the gaps in different subject areas. Only a few studies have examined the changing relationships between gaps in students' test scores and family and school measures in nationally representative data over several periods. This article builds on this previous work and addresses some of its limitations by analy…
Race, Class, and Tournament Track Mobility
Early research on track mobility suggested that students follow a tournament mobility process, but more recent research has failed to support the tournament mobility metaphor. These analyses attempted to discern the overall pattern of mobility. This study used data from High School and Beyond to investigate track mobility for four different disaggregated racial-class groups. By disaggregating the data, the authors were able to determine whether a…
An Archaeology of Effectively Maintained Inequality Theory
Effectively maintained inequality (EMI) was proposed as a general theory of inequality. While the theory flows from a decades-long tradition of studying social background effects on educational attainment, it also has resonances with theories in other domains. After conveying the tenets of EMI, I consider its proposed mechanisms and patterned implications for inequality. Given this foundation, I identify affinities between EMI and selected theore…
Effectively Maintained Inequality in Education
Race/Ethnicity over Fifty Years of Structural Differentiation in K-12 Schooling
In the United States, equally performing students of different racial/ethnic groups may have different prospects for enrollment in rigorous curricular positions. Over time, the processes and operation of curricular systems have changed, and those changes may matter for the existence of racial/ethnic differences in access. We first outline dimensions that distinguish forms of in-school structural differentiation. We then use those dimensions to de…
New directions in education transitions research
Selective Attrition in a Newly Hostile Regime
For every American birth cohort since 1905 social background effects have declined as the cohort moves through the educational system. Pre-1955 birth cohorts pursued schooling during rapid educational expansion and increasing financial support for higher education. In the 1980s, however, tuitions rose sharply and public financial support for higher education declined. This reversal may have increased the relative importance of social background f…
Seven Principles for Assessing Effectively Maintained Inequality
Effectively maintained inequality (EMI) was proposed as a general theory of inequality, but the theory flows from a decades-long tradition of studying social background effects on educational attainment. After an orienting discussion of several historic challenges of the study of social background effects on educational inequality, proposed and adopted solutions to those challenges, and subsequent critiques of those solutions, we offer and justif…
A neo-classical education transitions approach
Mare’s model of education transitions
Unequal Chances
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
Sociologists use data from experiments, ethnographies, survey interviews, in-depth interviews, archives, and administrative records. Analysts disagree, however, on whether probability sampling is necessary for each method. To address the issue, the author introduces eight dimensions of data collection, places each method within those dimensions, and uses that resource to assess the necessity and feasibility of probability sampling for each method…
Law, Race, and Education in the United States
After describing many of the features that structure educational opportunity, and how race interacts with these structures, we briefly relate a set of important orienting perspectives on the law-race relation. We divide issues of education into three categories: (a) inherently racialized aspects of law and education; (b) aspects of education that intersect race and the law; and (c) emerging issues in race, education, and the law. Treating desegre…
Tracking Inequality
What has happened since formal tracking was dismantled in U.S. high schools? In this provocative book, SFamuel Lucas reveals that many unintended consequences actually served to transform and submerge a stubborn system of in-school inequality. Drawing on nationally representative data and highly sophisticated methodologies, Lucas examines how the contemporary curricular structure works, including the scope of the structure, mobility within the st…
Response to Nielsen's Review of Inequality by Design
African-Americans
Inequality by Design
As debate rages over the widening and destructive gap between the rich and the rest of Americans, Claude Fischer and his colleagues present a comprehensive new treatment of inequality in America. They challenge arguments that expanding inequality is the natural, perhaps necessary, accompaniment of economic growth. They refute the claims of the incendiary bestseller The Bell Curve (1994) through a clear, rigorous re-analysis of the very data its a…
Selective Attrition in a Newly Hostile Regime
For every American birth cohort since 1905 social background effects have declined as the cohort moves through the educational system. Pre-1955 birth cohorts pursued schooling during rapid educational expansion and increasing financial support for higher education. In the 1980s, however, tuitions rose sharply and public financial support for higher education declined. This reversal may have increased the relative importance of social background f…
A New Genre
Happy Days are Here Again
Response to Nielsen's Review of Inequality by Design
Readings on Equal Education
Tracking Inequality
What has happened since formal tracking was dismantled in U.S. high schools? In this provocative book, SFamuel Lucas reveals that many unintended consequences actually served to transform and submerge a stubborn system of in-school inequality. Drawing on nationally representative data and highly sophisticated methodologies, Lucas examines how the contemporary curricular structure works, including the scope of the structure, mobility within the st…
Race, Class, and Tournament Track Mobility
Early research on track mobility suggested that students follow a tournament mobility process, but more recent research has failed to support the tournament mobility metaphor. These analyses attempted to discern the overall pattern of mobility. This study used data from High School and Beyond to investigate track mobility for four different disaggregated racial-class groups. By disaggregating the data, the authors were able to determine whether a…
Effectively Maintained Inequality
This article proposes a general explanation for social background‐related inequality. Educational attainment research indicates that the later an education transition, the lower the social background effect. While some suggest life course changes in the parent‐child relationship or between‐family competition explain this pattern, others contend the result is a statistical artifact, and that the analytic strategy presupposes agents are irrationall…
Sociodemographic Diversity, Correlated Achievement, and De Facto Tracking
De facto tracking-the association between students' courses in disparate subjects, regardless of the decline of institutional mechanisms that organized de jure tracking-is a contested feature of secondary schools. Some analysts imply that de facto tracking arises simply because students who do well in one area often do well in other areas. Other analysts contend that pronounced tracking systems maintain racial, ethnic, and social-class segregatio…
Law, Race, and Education in the United States
After describing many of the features that structure educational opportunity, and how race interacts with these structures, we briefly relate a set of important orienting perspectives on the law-race relation. We divide issues of education into three categories: (a) inherently racialized aspects of law and education; (b) aspects of education that intersect race and the law; and (c) emerging issues in race, education, and the law. Treating desegre…
Race and track location in U.S. public schools
Unequal Chances
How Changes in Families and Schools Are Related to Trends in Black-White Test Scores
Through several decades of research, a great deal has been written about trends in black-white test scores and the factors that may explain the gaps in different subject areas. Only a few studies have examined the changing relationships between gaps in students' test scores and family and school measures in nationally representative data over several periods. This article builds on this previous work and addresses some of its limitations by analy…
Stratification Theory, Socioeconomic Background, and Educational Attainment
Three proposals explicate the social origins/education transitions association. Maximally maintained inequality (MMI) (Raftery and Hout 1993) claims the association declines only at transitions high origin persons universally or nearly universally make. Relative risk aversion (RRA) (Breen and Goldthorpe 1997) suggests broader inequality reduction is possible and depends on changing costs and norms. Effectively maintained inequality (EMI) (Lucas 2…
New directions in education transitions research
A neo-classical education transitions approach
Withdrawn
Qualitative Comparative Analysis in Critical Perspective
Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) appears to offer a systematic means for case-oriented analysis. The method not only offers to provide a standardized procedure for qualitative research but also serves, to some, as an instantiation of deterministic methods. Others, however, contest QCA because of its deterministic lineage. Multiple other issues surrounding QCA, such as its response to measurement error and its ability to ascertain asymmetric…
First- and Second-Order Methodological Developments from the Coleman Report
Equality of Educational Opportunity was a watershed for sociological engagement with public policy, yet the questions the project addressed drew attention to several challenging methodological issues. Statistical advances, such as the multilevel model, were important first-order developments from the Coleman Report. Second-order developments, however, may be far less visible but perhaps even more important. Second-order developments of the Colema…
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
Sociologists use data from experiments, ethnographies, survey interviews, in-depth interviews, archives, and administrative records. Analysts disagree, however, on whether probability sampling is necessary for each method. To address the issue, the author introduces eight dimensions of data collection, places each method within those dimensions, and uses that resource to assess the necessity and feasibility of probability sampling for each method…
An Archaeology of Effectively Maintained Inequality Theory
Effectively maintained inequality (EMI) was proposed as a general theory of inequality. While the theory flows from a decades-long tradition of studying social background effects on educational attainment, it also has resonances with theories in other domains. After conveying the tenets of EMI, I consider its proposed mechanisms and patterned implications for inequality. Given this foundation, I identify affinities between EMI and selected theore…
Effectively Maintained Inequality in Education
Seven Principles for Assessing Effectively Maintained Inequality
Effectively maintained inequality (EMI) was proposed as a general theory of inequality, but the theory flows from a decades-long tradition of studying social background effects on educational attainment. After an orienting discussion of several historic challenges of the study of social background effects on educational inequality, proposed and adopted solutions to those challenges, and subsequent critiques of those solutions, we offer and justif…
Sociology (22 works) · Economics (18 works) · Mathematics (17 works) · School Choice and Performance (14 works) · Inequality (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies (10 works) · Demographic economics (7 works)