Aaron M Pallas
Biographic Data
| ID | 167448 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Aaron M Pallas |
| GIVEN NAMES | Aaron M |
| FAMILY NAME | Pallas |
| SIGNATURE | PALLAS A M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Columbia University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9916-1503 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 48 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 281 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 48 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
A Taxonomy of Subjective Control: Teachers‘ Narrative Accounts of a Teacher Evaluation System
Background or Context: Federal and state reforms have expanded accountability systems for school districts, schools, and teachers. However, there is little evidence that the implementation of new teacher evaluation systems relying on measures of student learning and measures of teaching practice, with differentiated performance categories and rewards and sanctions, have had broad positive influences on teaching practice and student learning. Purp…
The Rhetoric of Teacher Evaluation: New York City Teachers’ Responses to Performance Labels
This paper uses the case of New York City teachers’ interpretations of the labels that are assigned to their performance to explore how teachers experience teacher evaluation systems. Based on our analyses of 141 interviews with New York City teachers, we argue that the ordinal performance labels assigned to teachers by New York City’s Advance teacher development and evaluation system—Highly Effective, Effective, Developing, and Ineffective—have …
Race, Population Studies, and America's Public Schools: A Critical Demography Perspective
Schooling, Learning, and the Life Course
The modern life course is characterized by three major trends: (i) schooling has increased worldwide and penetrates virtually all phases of life; (ii) the globalization of the economy has rendered work, and the features of modern life that stem from it, less predictable; and (iii) new technologies and the ongoing institutionalization of the self allow for participation in an ever‐increasing number of communities. These shifts open up new ways of …
Social origins and post-high school institutional pathways: A cumulative dis/advantage approach
Assessing the Future of Higher Education
Meeting the basic educational needs of children and youth
A Multiplex Theory of Urban Service Distribution: The Case of School Expenditures
The literature on urban service delivery has crystallized into two key theoretical perspectives, one emphasizing agency and interests and the other structure and bureaucracy. These perspectives typically do not allow for the possibility that explanations of the origins of variability in the distribution of urban services might differ from explanations of the persistence of such variability. In this article, the authors articulate a multiplex, lon…
The American Dream and the Power of Wealth
Intelligence Tests
Intelligence is a concept whose meaning has been fashioned by the discipline of psychology. Psychologists view intelligence as a set of mental abilities that are inferred from an individual's performance on an intelligence test. In defining intelligence as one or more abilities, psychologists seek to demarcate it from the accumulation of specific knowledge to which only some individuals are exposed. In this view, intelligence is a broad cognitive…
Preparing Education Doctoral Students for Epistemological Diversity
One of the most confusing developments in educational research over the past quarter-century has been the proliferation of epistemologies-beliefs about what counts as knowledge in the field of education, what is evidence of a claim, and what counts as a warrant for that evidence. Although the discussion of various epistemological perspectives in educational research often is highly abstract, and viewed as the prerogative of philosophers at some d…
Rites and Wrongs: Institutional Explanations for the Student Course-Scheduling Process in Urban High Schools
Urban high schools operating in complex social and organizational environments are likely to face high levels of uncertainty that may make it difficult to manage core organizational processes efficiently and that may lead to tensions among technical logics of action and institutionalized beliefs about schooling. Such tensions can be observed in the course-scheduling process, one of the most important administrative routines supporting the core in…
Research in Sociology of Education and Socialization (Research in Sociology of Education)
Dire Straits: The Narrow Vision of the Holmes Group
Research news and Comment: Dire Straits: The Narrow Vision of the Holmes Group
Ability-Group Effects: Instructional, Social, or Institutional
Aaron M. Pallas, Doris R. Entwisle, Karl L. Alexander, M. Francis Stluka, Ability-Group Effects: Instructional, Social, or Institutional?, Sociology of Education, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Jan., 1994), pp. 27-46
Giving Up on School: Student Dropouts and Teacher Burnouts.Margaret Diane LeCompte , Anthony Gary Dworkin
Schooling Disadvantaged Children: Racing against Catastrophe
This volume assesses the current status of children in American society and offers a set of policy recommendations for addressing their educational needs. The authors begin by describing the various definitions of disadvantaged used by researchers and policy makers, linking these definitions to the strategies and policies they imply in efforts to address the problems of the disadvantaged. Part 1 also includes a sociodemographic profile of the and…
Social Structure and the Development of Self-Esteem in Young Children
Aaron M. Pallas, Doris R. Entwisle, Karl L. Alexander, Peter Weinstein, Social Structure and the Development of Self-Esteem in Young Children, Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Dec., 1990), pp. 302-315
Teaching the Sociology of Education
Schooling Disadvantaged Children: Racing Against Catastrophe
Education and American Youth: The Impact of the High School Experience
The Changing Nature of the Disadvantaged Population: Current Dimensions and Future Trends
Aaron M. Pallas, Gary Natriello, Edward L. McDill, The Changing Nature of the Disadvantaged Population: Current Dimensions and Future Trends, Educational Researcher, Vol. 18, No. 5 (Jun. - Jul., 1989), pp. 16-22
On the Right Track? Curriculum and Academic Achievement
In an earlier study (Alexander, Natriello, and Pallas 1985), we compared the gains in academic achievement of high school graduates against those of dropouts over a two-year period. Baseline data were procured during the sophomore year, when all were still in school. Two years later, these same youngsters were retested. About 14 percent of the retested youngsters had left school in the interval between testing sessions. The performance on the sec…
A Social Psychological Model of the Schooling Process Over First Grade
Children's experiences during the first grade, as they pass through a key life-cycle transition, are an especially critical but generally neglected period in the sociology of development. This paper examines the process of educational achievement for a birth cohort of Baltimore children followed prospectively over their first-grade year. Employing a social-psychological model of the early schooling process, the analysis identifies some of the per…
Ability-Group Effects: Instructional, Social, or Institutional
Aaron M. Pallas, Doris R. Entwisle, Karl L. Alexander, M. Francis Stluka, Ability-Group Effects: Instructional, Social, or Institutional?, Sociology of Education, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Jan., 1994), pp. 27-46
Preparing Education Doctoral Students for Epistemological Diversity
One of the most confusing developments in educational research over the past quarter-century has been the proliferation of epistemologies-beliefs about what counts as knowledge in the field of education, what is evidence of a claim, and what counts as a warrant for that evidence. Although the discussion of various epistemological perspectives in educational research often is highly abstract, and viewed as the prerogative of philosophers at some d…
The Changing Nature of the Disadvantaged Population: Current Dimensions and Future Trends
Aaron M. Pallas, Gary Natriello, Edward L. McDill, The Changing Nature of the Disadvantaged Population: Current Dimensions and Future Trends, Educational Researcher, Vol. 18, No. 5 (Jun. - Jul., 1989), pp. 16-22
School Sector and Cognitive Performance: When is a Little a Little
Coleman, Hoffer, and Kilgore's claims regarding the effects of Catholic schools on cognitive achievement have, evoked much controversy. Critics have argued that Catholic schools enroll students of superior academic competency, and that Coleman et al., using cross-sectional testing data, could not distinguish differential sector effectiveness from this selection effect. The first follow-up (1982) of the High School and Beyond base-year sophomore c…
A Population at Risk: Potential Consequences of Tougher School Standards for Student Dropouts
This paper considers the potential impact of the recent recommendations for raising standards in American schools on a population at risk, that is, those students likely to leave school prior to high school graduation. The paper proceeds by (1) presenting a systematic review of the empirical evidence on factors that predict dropping out, (2) synthesizing and explicating the recent recommendations for raising standards in American schools, (3) con…
Sex Differences in Quantitative SAT Performance: New Evidence on the Differential Coursework Hypothesis
Recent research has questioned socialization explanations for sex differences in mathematics performance. In particular, the hypothesis that differences in the details of males’ and females’ high school programs are responsible for the sizable average difference between the sexes in quantitative Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) performance has been challenged in a recent study by Benbow and Stanley (1980) . This research, however, considered sex-li…
Social Background and Academic Determinants of Two-Year versus Four-Year College Attendance: Evidence from Two Cohorts a Decade Apart
The present paper examines determinants of access to two-year versus four-year colleges among college-going youth. Data from the NLS class of 1972 and the HSB class of 1980 senior high school cohorts are compared to evaluate changes in racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender constraints on enrollment patterns. Academic resource measures (i. e., test performance, high school grades, and high school curriculum) also are examined in order to assess…
Rites and Wrongs: Institutional Explanations for the Student Course-Scheduling Process in Urban High Schools
Urban high schools operating in complex social and organizational environments are likely to face high levels of uncertainty that may make it difficult to manage core organizational processes efficiently and that may lead to tensions among technical logics of action and institutionalized beliefs about schooling. Such tensions can be observed in the course-scheduling process, one of the most important administrative routines supporting the core in…
Private Schools and Public Policy: New Evidence on Cognitive Achievement in Public and Private Schools
Karl L. Alexander, Aaron M. Pallas, Private Schools and Public Policy: New Evidence on Cognitive Achievement in Public and Private Schools, Sociology of Education, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Oct., 1983), pp. 170-182
On the Right Track? Curriculum and Academic Achievement
In an earlier study (Alexander, Natriello, and Pallas 1985), we compared the gains in academic achievement of high school graduates against those of dropouts over a two-year period. Baseline data were procured during the sophomore year, when all were still in school. Two years later, these same youngsters were retested. About 14 percent of the retested youngsters had left school in the interval between testing sessions. The performance on the sec…
Social Background, Academic Resources, and College Graduation: Recent Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey
Using the 1979 follow-up wave of the National Longitudinal Survey data, this paper examines rates of completion of a baccalaureate degree according to two categories of individual characteristics: social background factors (specifically, race, gender, and socioeconomic status) and academic resources at the time of secondary school graduation (specifically, scores on a standardized academic test, class rank, and curriculum). The paper first descri…
Measure for Measure: On the Use of Endogenous Ability Data in School-Process Research
The appropriate use of ability test performance in evaluating schools has been a subject of considerable debate. The present study evaluates three strategies for controlling input-level ability differences in such research: longitudinal, predetermined ability measures; cross-sectional, endogenous ability measures; and SES measures as proxies for ability. In general, endogenous measures of ability behave much like predetermined measures, while SES…
For Whom the School Bell Tolls: The Impact of Dropping Out on Cognitive Performance
Shipley, Maynard 1927 The War on Modern Science. New York: Knopf. Starr, Paul 1982 The Social Transformation of American Medicine. New York: Basic. Tobey, Ronald C. 1971 The American Ideology of National Science. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Tompkins, Jerry R. 1965 D-Days at Dayton. Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press. Turner, Frank M. 1980 Public science in Britain, 1880-1919. Isis 71:589-608. Useem, Michael 1976 State product…
Social Structure and the Development of Self-Esteem in Young Children
Aaron M. Pallas, Doris R. Entwisle, Karl L. Alexander, Peter Weinstein, Social Structure and the Development of Self-Esteem in Young Children, Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Dec., 1990), pp. 302-315
Social origins and post-high school institutional pathways: A cumulative dis/advantage approach
The Schooling Process in First Grade: Two Samples a Decade Apart
This paper presents parallel estimates of structural equation models to explain children’s educational attainment over first grade. One set of estimates is based on a 3-school sample drawn in 1971–77. The other set of estimates is based on a 20-school sample drawn in 1982–83. The evidence suggests that, within reasonable limits, results are comparable. The models capture some of the social influences that shape children’s academic marks and, to a…
Curriculum Reform and School Performance: "An Evaluation of the "New Basics
The National Commission on Excellence in Education report proposed the imposition of a new high school curriculum, organized around "Five New Basics." We examine whether the commission's New Basics are likely to enhance levels of cognitive performance, which is the commission's central concern. Using data from the ETS Growth Study, we find that completion of the core curriculum has sizable effects on senior year test performance, even when prior …
Old and New Research Designs for Studying the World-System: A Research Note
This research note reviews four previously used research designs for testing propositions about the processes of the world-system. It points out the utility of models which incorporate more than one unit of analysis (multilevel models) and examines the advantages and pitfalls of two research designs for testing such multilevel models
A Social Psychological Model of the Schooling Process Over First Grade
Children's experiences during the first grade, as they pass through a key life-cycle transition, are an especially critical but generally neglected period in the sociology of development. This paper examines the process of educational achievement for a birth cohort of Baltimore children followed prospectively over their first-grade year. Employing a social-psychological model of the early schooling process, the analysis identifies some of the per…
Kindergarten Experience: Cognitive Effects or Socialization
This paper employs a large representative sample of Baltimore first graders to examine effects of the amount of children’s kindergarten experience on their first-grade performance. More kindergarten leads to some early positive effects on cognitive status (fall California Achievement Test [CAT] scores, first marks in reading and math), more noticeably for black children than for white. There are some year-end effects of more kindergarten on boys’…
Race, Population Studies, and America's Public Schools: A Critical Demography Perspective
Dire Straits: The Narrow Vision of the Holmes Group
Research news and Comment: Dire Straits: The Narrow Vision of the Holmes Group
Assessing the Future of Higher Education
A Multiplex Theory of Urban Service Distribution: The Case of School Expenditures
The literature on urban service delivery has crystallized into two key theoretical perspectives, one emphasizing agency and interests and the other structure and bureaucracy. These perspectives typically do not allow for the possibility that explanations of the origins of variability in the distribution of urban services might differ from explanations of the persistence of such variability. In this article, the authors articulate a multiplex, lon…
Measure for Measure: On the Use of Endogenous Ability Data in School-Process Research
The appropriate use of ability test performance in evaluating schools has been a subject of considerable debate. The present study evaluates three strategies for controlling input-level ability differences in such research: longitudinal, predetermined ability measures; cross-sectional, endogenous ability measures; and SES measures as proxies for ability. In general, endogenous measures of ability behave much like predetermined measures, while SES…
Social Background, Academic Resources, and College Graduation: Recent Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey
Using the 1979 follow-up wave of the National Longitudinal Survey data, this paper examines rates of completion of a baccalaureate degree according to two categories of individual characteristics: social background factors (specifically, race, gender, and socioeconomic status) and academic resources at the time of secondary school graduation (specifically, scores on a standardized academic test, class rank, and curriculum). The paper first descri…
Reply to Coleman
Old and New Research Designs for Studying the World-System: A Research Note
This research note reviews four previously used research designs for testing propositions about the processes of the world-system. It points out the utility of models which incorporate more than one unit of analysis (multilevel models) and examines the advantages and pitfalls of two research designs for testing such multilevel models
Method and Theory in World-System Research: A Reply to Dolan and Lerner, Ray and Rosenau
Sex Differences in Quantitative SAT Performance: New Evidence on the Differential Coursework Hypothesis
Recent research has questioned socialization explanations for sex differences in mathematics performance. In particular, the hypothesis that differences in the details of males’ and females’ high school programs are responsible for the sizable average difference between the sexes in quantitative Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) performance has been challenged in a recent study by Benbow and Stanley (1980) . This research, however, considered sex-li…
Reply to Benbow and Stanley
We welcome Benbow and Stanley's reaction to our paper, as it contains important clarifications of the positions they espoused in their 1980 Science article (and several subsequent papers). As a critique of our paper, though, their comment is of less value. In this reply, we consider their most serious concerns, and also point out some similarities in our two lines of research on sex differences in quantitative performance. Benbow and Stanley disc…
Bringing the Arrows Back In: On the Recursivity Assumptions in School Process Models
School process models in the tradition of those introduced by Sewell and his colleagues have identified interpersonal influences as central to the maintenance of differences in goal orientations across SES levels. These differences in goal orientations, in turn, are the most immediate causes of the attainment differentials observed later as youth complete their schooling and enter the world of work. Documentation of this social-psychological proc…
Private Schools and Public Policy: New Evidence on Cognitive Achievement in Public and Private Schools
Karl L. Alexander, Aaron M. Pallas, Private Schools and Public Policy: New Evidence on Cognitive Achievement in Public and Private Schools, Sociology of Education, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Oct., 1983), pp. 170-182
On Educational Testing: Intelligence, Performance Standards, Test Anxiety, and Latent Traits
"In Defense of "Private Schools and Public Policy: Reply to Kilgore
Kilgore's critique of our paper (Alexander and Pallas, 1983) raises several questions regarding our conclusion that public schools-do about as well as Catholic schools in promoting cognitive achievement. We agree with Kilgore on only one point: the results we present are not all that dissimilar to those reported by her and her colleagues. What is striking is that we read their implications so differently. Kilgore takes issue with our conclusion t…
Curriculum Reform and School Performance: "An Evaluation of the "New Basics
The National Commission on Excellence in Education report proposed the imposition of a new high school curriculum, organized around "Five New Basics." We examine whether the commission's New Basics are likely to enhance levels of cognitive performance, which is the commission's central concern. Using data from the ETS Growth Study, we find that completion of the core curriculum has sizable effects on senior year test performance, even when prior …
For Whom the School Bell Tolls: The Impact of Dropping Out on Cognitive Performance
Shipley, Maynard 1927 The War on Modern Science. New York: Knopf. Starr, Paul 1982 The Social Transformation of American Medicine. New York: Basic. Tobey, Ronald C. 1971 The American Ideology of National Science. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Tompkins, Jerry R. 1965 D-Days at Dayton. Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press. Turner, Frank M. 1980 Public science in Britain, 1880-1919. Isis 71:589-608. Useem, Michael 1976 State product…
School Sector and Cognitive Performance: When is a Little a Little
Coleman, Hoffer, and Kilgore's claims regarding the effects of Catholic schools on cognitive achievement have, evoked much controversy. Critics have argued that Catholic schools enroll students of superior academic competency, and that Coleman et al., using cross-sectional testing data, could not distinguish differential sector effectiveness from this selection effect. The first follow-up (1982) of the High School and Beyond base-year sophomore c…
A Population at Risk: Potential Consequences of Tougher School Standards for Student Dropouts
This paper considers the potential impact of the recent recommendations for raising standards in American schools on a population at risk, that is, those students likely to leave school prior to high school graduation. The paper proceeds by (1) presenting a systematic review of the empirical evidence on factors that predict dropping out, (2) synthesizing and explicating the recent recommendations for raising standards in American schools, (3) con…
Reply to Hauser and Sewell
Journal Article Reply to Hauser and Sewell Get access Karl L. Alexander, Karl L. Alexander Johns Hopkins University Address correspondence to Karl L. Alexander, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Aaron M. Pallas Aaron M. Pallas Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education Search for other works by this auth…
The Schooling Process in First Grade: Two Samples a Decade Apart
This paper presents parallel estimates of structural equation models to explain children’s educational attainment over first grade. One set of estimates is based on a 3-school sample drawn in 1971–77. The other set of estimates is based on a 20-school sample drawn in 1982–83. The evidence suggests that, within reasonable limits, results are comparable. The models capture some of the social influences that shape children’s academic marks and, to a…
Social Background and Academic Determinants of Two-Year versus Four-Year College Attendance: Evidence from Two Cohorts a Decade Apart
The present paper examines determinants of access to two-year versus four-year colleges among college-going youth. Data from the NLS class of 1972 and the HSB class of 1980 senior high school cohorts are compared to evaluate changes in racial/ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender constraints on enrollment patterns. Academic resource measures (i. e., test performance, high school grades, and high school curriculum) also are examined in order to assess…
The Social Context of Instruction: Group Organization and Group Processes
The High Costs of High Standards: School Reform and Dropouts
Not all the consequences of reformers 'high standards will be positive
Kindergarten Experience: Cognitive Effects or Socialization
This paper employs a large representative sample of Baltimore first graders to examine effects of the amount of children’s kindergarten experience on their first-grade performance. More kindergarten leads to some early positive effects on cognitive status (fall California Achievement Test [CAT] scores, first marks in reading and math), more noticeably for black children than for white. There are some year-end effects of more kindergarten on boys’…
Getting Ready for First Grade: Standards of Deportment in Home and School
Research on academic socialization has emphasized the importance of experiences in the home and school for shaping the course of academic development. Rarely, though, has research considered whether consistency or congruence of socialization experiences in these two settings is especially beneficial (or, conversely, whether inconsistencies are especially detrimental). The present study examines standards of deportment held by parents and classroo…
Children who do Exceptionally Well in First Grade
Children's progress in the early years of school is thought to be important for understanding their later achievement, but most sociological research carried out at the primary level skirts a broadly inclusive accounting of the social and personal processes that underlie early achievement. The study reported in this article aimed to fill part of that gap. It used a modified school process model to examine factors that contribute to unexpectedly l…
A Social Psychological Model of the Schooling Process Over First Grade
Children's experiences during the first grade, as they pass through a key life-cycle transition, are an especially critical but generally neglected period in the sociology of development. This paper examines the process of educational achievement for a birth cohort of Baltimore children followed prospectively over their first-grade year. Employing a social-psychological model of the early schooling process, the analysis identifies some of the per…
Education and American Youth: The Impact of the High School Experience
Psychology (39 works) · Sociology (26 works) · School Choice and Performance (23 works) · Mathematics education (18 works) · Political science (18 works) · Computer Science (12 works) · Economics (12 works) · Pedagogy (12 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Developmental psychology (10 works)