John T. Yun

Implications of Income-Based School Assignment Policies for Racial School Segregation

A number of public school districts in the United States have adopted income-based integration policies—policies that use measures of family income or socioeconomic status—in determining school assignment. Some scholars and policymakers contend that such policies will also reduce racial segregation. In this article this assumption is explored by computing upper and lower bounds on the possible and probable levels of racial segregation that would result from race-neutral income-based school assignment policies. The article finds that, in general, income integration is no guarantee of even modest racial desegregation. In particular, the extent of ancillary racial integration produced by an income-integration policy will depend on the size of racial income disparities within a given district, the specifics of an income-integration policy, and the patterns of racial and socioeconomic residential segregation in a school district. Data on racial income inequality and income segregation in urban districts throughout the United States indicate that very high levels of racial segregation are possible under any practical income-integration policy. The authors conclude that, given the extent of residential racial segregation in the United States, it is unlikely that race-neutral income-integration policies will significantly reduce school racial segregation, although there is reason to believe that such policies are likely to have other beneficial effects on schooling.

College Access, K-12 Concentrated Disadvantage, and the Next 25 Years of Education Research

Race-inclusive admissions policies are important tools for attaining equitable access to selective colleges and universities. However, access to such institutions does not begin at the point of admissions. Rather, it depends on an interaction between the K-12 system and university admissions policies that may either mitigate inequalities or propagate them. Using data from California, we use cluster analysis as a starting point to explore how disadvantage can be concentrated in our K-12 system and how that disadvantage can further compound racial/ethnic disparities in college access

Measuring School Racial Composition and Student Outcomes in a Multiracial Society.

This article examines the challenges of measuring school racial composition in a multiracial society, particularly the difficulty in specifying school racial composition when there are large numbers of students representing multiple racial groups. We employ two specifications of school racial composition to illustrate the strengths, weaknesses, and challenges of each approach and discuss how alternative conceptualizations of school racial composition contribute to the literature on the benefits of school desegregation and diversity. We analyze survey data from three large urban school districts and investigate a nonacademic outcome with important social implications—comfort working with people of a racial group different from one’s own.

Reducing Inequality in Academic Success for Incoming College Students: A Randomized Trial of Growth Mindset and Belonging Interventions

ABSTRACT Light-touch social psychological interventions have gained considerable attention for their potential to improve academic outcomes for underrepresented and/or disadvantaged students in postsecondary education. While findings from previous interventions have demonstrated positive effects for racial and ethnic minority and first-generation students in small samples, few interventions have been implemented at a larger scale with more heterogeneous student populations. To address this research gap, 7,686 students, representing more than 90% of incoming first-year students at a large Midwestern public university, were randomly assigned to an online growth mindset intervention, social belonging intervention, or a comparison group. Results suggest that after the fall semester, the growth mindset intervention significantly improved grade point averages for Latino/a students by about .40 points. This represents a 72% reduction in the GPA gap between White and Latino/a students. Further, this effect was replicated for both spring semester GPA and cumulative GPA. These findings indicate that light-touch interventions may be a minimally invasive approach to improving academic outcomes for underrepresented students. Our findings also highlight the complexity of implementing customized belonging interventions in heterogeneous contexts.

Shaping Educational Policy Through the Courts: The Use of Social Science Research in Amicus Briefs in Fisher I

Different from more traditional policy-making avenues, the courts provide an antipolitical arena that does not require broad agreement from various constituents for policy enactment. Seeking to guide court decisions on these policy issues, individuals and organizations have filed amicus briefs that increasingly include social science to support their arguments. The Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin Supreme Court case presents an ideal example to study the use of social science evidence in amicus briefs to shape educational policy. Findings from this study identify differences in the use of social science research that suggest many ways in which our current understanding of the efforts of actors to shape educational policy via the highest court in the nation is incomplete. This study also highlights why developing this understanding could be extremely useful to both the creation of educational policy and the use of antipolitical approaches to change such policy.