Secondary School Tracking and Educational Inequality
Compensation, Reinforcement, or Neutrality
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2211500 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Adam Gamoran (0000-0003-0495-4883), Robert D Mare |
| Year | 1989 |
| Volume | 94 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 1146-1183 |
| Publication date | 1989-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-9602 • E-ISSN: 1537-5390 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/229114 |
| OpenAlex | W2055989807 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 298 |
| References cited | 24 |
This article examines the effects of academic tracking in secondary schools on educational stratification and considers how that tracking may affect levels and dispersions of academic achievement and high school graduation rates among social groups. Data from the High School and Beyond survey of students who were sophomores in 1980 show that placement in the college track substantially benefits growth in mathematics achievement and the probability of high school graduation, even when measured and unmeasured sources of nonrandom assignment to tracks are taken into account. Track assignment reinforces preexisting inequalities in achievement among students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. However, track assignment and differential achievement in tracks partially compensate blacks and girls for their initial disadvantages and makes racial and sexual inequalities smaller than they may have otherwise been. The article provides qualified support for the view that students are assigned to the tracks that provide the greatest reward to their measured background characteristics
Academic achievement · Affect (linguistics) · Educational inequality · Graduation (instrument) · Inequality · Mathematics education · Neutrality · Pedagogy · Political science · Social science · Social stratification · Socioeconomic status · Sociology · Track (disk drive) · Tracking (education) · Computer Science · Demography · Higher Education Research Studies · Law · Mathematics · Psychology · School Choice and Performance · Social Psychology · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies
First- and Second-Order Methodological Developments from the Coleman Report
The Household Registration System and Rural-Urban Educational Inequality in Contemporary China
The Enduring Allegorical Appeal of “Structural Inequality
Familiar faces, familiar spaces
Vocational Secondary Education
Standardized testing and school segregation
Retracted
Alternative Uses of Ability Grouping in Secondary Schools
Track Placement
Tracking and Students' Friendships
Socioeconomic background, education, and labor force outcomes
Diferenciação institucional e desigualdades no ensino superior
Loglinear Models with Missing Data
Foreign-born Peers and Academic Performance
Sociodemographic Diversity, Correlated Achievement, and De Facto Tracking
Race, Class, and Tournament Track Mobility
Invested Dollars or Diverted Dreams
Tracking and Transitions through the Middle Grades
The Collegial Focus and High School Students' Achievement
Social Positions in Schooling
Race, Cultural Capital, and Educational Resources
From First Grade Forward
The Winner-Take-All High School
Using Multilevel Analysis to Assess School Effectiveness
American Schooling and Educational Inequality
Middle Schools and Math Groups
Differential Asset Conversion
The Path to Math
Secondary Vocational Education and the Transition from School to Work
Opportunity-to-Learn Standards
School Accountability, Postsecondary Attainment, and Earnings
Bridging Methodological Gaps
Collaborative Connections among Students, Teachers, and Professors in a Spanish Concurrent Enrollment Program (A Case Study)
Do Private Schools Force Public Schools to Compete
Inequality and Attainment in a Dual Labor Market
Student Selection Into Course Sequences in Mathematics
Sociology of Education
Action publique, gouvernance et recherche en éducation
Przezwyciężenie statusowej determinacji karier szkolnych
Racial Disparities and Discrimination in Education
Student Achievement in Public Magnet, Public Comprehensive, and Private City High Schools
College Major Choice
High School Extracurricular Activities
Classroom composition and peer effects
Achievement Effects of Ability Grouping in Secondary Schools
Equalising schooling, unequalising private supplementary tutoring
Genese sozialer Ungleichheit im institutionellen Kontext der Schule
Response
Response
The Interactive Effects of Race, Gender and School Composition on College Track Placement
Parental Involvement as Social Capital
Curriculum Differentiation and High School Achievement
Detracking America's schools
Opportunities For Learning
Are interest groups effective public action influencers in the field of education? Case studies of two school reforms in Switzerland
Wo soll’s hingehen, kleiner Fisch? Eine konzeptuelle Replikation von Dumont et al. (2017) zu Schulformeffekten auf akademisches Selbstkonzept, schulische Motivation und die Einschätzung eigener Ausbildungschancen am Ende der Sekundarstufe I
Grade 9 mathematics teachers’ experiences and perceptions of destreaming
Educational inequality due to lack of validity
The impact of labor market work and educational tracking on student educational outcomes
Attending a school with heterogeneous peers
Effects of the teacher-student relationship on the learning and achievement motivation of high-tracking school students in adolescence
Exposure to Same-Race or Same-Ethnicity Teachers and Advanced Math Course-Taking in High School
Beyond Tracking
Racially diverse educational pathways and STEM college outcomes
The Effect of School Tracking on Student Achievement and Inequality
Licensed professions
Keys to the Gate? Equal Sign Knowledge at Second Grade Predicts Fourth-Grade Algebra Competence
Who Climbs the Ivory Tower? Social Origins of Academic Faculty in an Egalitarian Welfare State
Stereotype Threat and Educational Tracking
Differences in Academic Preparedness Do Not Fully Explain Black–White Enrollment Disparities in Advanced High School Coursework
Does State Allocation of University Funding Moderate Effectively Maintained Inequality
Buying out of familial obligation
Transnational migration and incorporation into the labor market in Japan
College Admissions Testing
Law, Race, and Education in the United States
Do vocational education policy and high school placements reproduce social inequality in Turkey
Unequal Educational Transitions in Estonia
Social Selectivity of Track Mobility in Secondary Schools
Social Inequalities in the Choice of Secondary School
Spheres of Justice within Schools
Are contextual rather than personal factors at the basis of an anti-school culture? A Bayesian analysis of differences in intelligence, overexcitability, and learning patterns between (former) lower and higher-track students
Race effects on students' track mobility in high school
Pygmalion in instruction? Tracking, teacher reward structures, and educational inequality
Revisiting “Kindergarten as academic boot camp”
Plessy’s Tracks
Rewidening the lens to ethnic and socioeconomic diversity? ‘Othering’ through inclusion and assessment in Israeli educational policy and practice
Effects of Advanced Course-taking on Math and Science Achievement
The Impact of Tracking
High School and Women's Life Course
Social Inequality in Education
Limiting Opportunities to Learn in Upper‐Secondary Schooling
Culture, pedagogy and equity in a meritocratic education system
Global Self-Esteem in Technical/Vocational Versus General Secondary School Tracks
Kognitive Homogenisierung, schulische Leistungen und soziale Bildungsungleichheit
Searching for the golden model of education
School tracking and educational inequality
The progression of achievement gap between immigrant and native-born students from primary to secondary education
How does exposure to a different school track influence learning progress? Explaining scissor effects by track in Germany
Introduction to symposium on unmeasured heterogeneity in school transition models
Breaking barriers
Keeping track
Rebellion in a high school
Educating the expert society.
Making inequality
Inequality
Social Relations in a Secondary School
Who Drops Out of High School and Why? Findings from a National Study
Limited-dependent and qualitative variables in econometrics
Curriculum Reform and School Performance
Dropping out of High School
Selection and Allocation Within Schools
Curriculum Tracking and Delinquency
Curricula and Coursework
Effects of Ability Grouping in British Secondary Schools
Tracking and Ethnicity in Israeli Secondary Education
Contextual Effects in the High School Attainment Process
Curriculum Tracking and Status Maintenance
Tracking and Frustration Reconsidered
Track Misperceptions and Frustrated College Plans
Assessing School Effects
Student Characteristics and Assignment to Ability Groups
Structural Equations and Path Analysis for Discrete Data
The Effects of Education as an Institution
Social Selection and Stratification Within Schools
| Unique citing works | 298 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 8,05 |
| Citation span | 1989 - 2026 (38) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 263 |