Samuel R. Lucas

Tracking Inequality: Stratification and Mobility in American High Schools

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 structure, how an individuals location in the structure is socially patterned, and the consequences of these locations for a students college entry and career path. These issues are then skillfully linked to long-standing debates about stratification processes within schools and the relationship between schools and Western societies. Appendixes at the end of the book include detailed information about the authors methods of analyses, providing an excellent model for further research.

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 causality, are also matters of interest. Existing research has demonstrated the use of QCA on real data, but such data do not allow one to establish the method’s efficacy, because the true causes of real social phenomena are always contestable. In response, the authors analyze several simulated data sets for which true causal processes are known. They find that QCA finds the correct causal story only 3 times across 70 different solutions, and even these rare successes, on closer examination, actually reveal additional fundamental problems with the method. Further epistemological analyses of the results find key problems with QCA’s stated epistemology, and results indicate that QCA fails even when its stated epistemological claims are ontologically accurate. Thus, the authors conclude that analysts should reject both QCA and its epistemological justifications in favor of existing effective methods and epistemologies for qualitative research.

An inconvenient dataset: bias and inappropriate inference with the multilevel model

The multilevel model has become a staple of social research. I textually and formally explicate sample design features that, I contend, are required for unbiased estimation of macro-level multilevel model parameters and the use of tools for statistical inference, such as standard errors. After detailing the limited and conflicting guidance on sample design in the multilevel model didactic literature, illustrative nationally-representative datasets and published examples that violate the posited requirements are identified. Because the didactic literature is either silent on sample design requirements or in disagreement with the constraints posited here, two Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to clarify the issues. The results indicate that bias follows use of samples that fail to satisfy the requirements outlined; notably, the bias is poorly-behaved, such that estimates provide neither upper nor lower bounds for the population parameter. Further, hypothesis tests are unjustified. Thus, published multilevel model analyses using many workhorse datasets, including NELS, AdHealth, NLSY, GSS, PSID, and SIPP, often unwittingly convey substantive results and theoretical conclusions that lack foundation. Future research using the multilevel model should be limited to cases that satisfy the sample requirements described.

Hope, Anguish, and the Problem of Our Time: An Essay on Publication of The Black-White Test Score Gap

In the metropolis of the modern world, in this the closing year of the nineteenth century, there has been assembled a congress of men and women of African blood, to deliberate solemnly upon the present situation and outlook of the darker races of mankind. The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line, the question as to how far differences of race—which show themselves chiefly in the color of the skin and texture of the hair—will hereafter be made the basis to denying over half the world the right of sharing to their utmost ability the opportunities and privileges of modern civilization. —W. E. B. Du Bois, 1900, Address to the Nations of the World Although Du Bois identified the problem of the twentieth century with international sweep, as the century comes to a close American social scientists are still trying to determine just what the American problem is. Even a boundless optimist must be disheartened that now, nearly a century after Du Bois’ call, many leading scholars in the most powerful nation the world has ever seen are still engaged in argument around the facts of racial inequality. Further, this continuing debate has created neither a new consensus nor a redoubled commitment to eradicating racial inequality; instead, in the last years of the twentieth century American scholars have resurrected an old query concerning race. Scholars now ask the tired question yet again: Is racial inequality in the United States driven by social factors, or does it flow from biogenetic differences between blacks and whites?

Where the Rubber Meets the Road Probability and Nonprobability Moments in Experiment, Interview, Archival, Administrative, and Ethnographic Data Collection

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. The author finds that some methods often seen as unique are not, whereas others’ unique natures are confirmed. More surprisingly, some methods for which probability sampling is rare were found to require it, whereas one for which probability sampling is usually believed to be impossible was found to easily use it. Efforts to salvage nonprobability samples and eight additional general justifications for nonprobability sampling are addressed. Advice for individual analysts and counsel for collective responses to improve research are offered.

Unequal Chances: Family Background and Economic SuccessUnequal Chances: Family Background and Economic Success, edited by BowlesSamuel, GintisHerbert, and GrovesMelissa Osborne. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. 304 pp.

to think he could have compelled his contributors to conform to any set style or length. He seems to have forgotten that one of the jobs of an editor is to do just that! Instead of editing the articles to fine-tune the writing and cut down on unnecessary words, he seems to have published them just as he received them. While this worked well for a few chapters, most needed varying degrees of editing. While the unevenness of the chapters and the pedestrian introductions to the book and each of the five sections prevent me from recommending the book as a whole, parts of this book are well worth assigning. As Bandana Purkayastha points out in her solid chapter on Indo-Americans, racial and ethnic minorities often face the dilemma of being singled out, as native informants, to explain/represent their group. However, they are also often seen as native informants, whose explanations are purely subjective and cannot be trusted. Professors who teach racial/ethnic relations face these dual perceptions as well. When teaching about their own group, they are dismissed by many students as being too subjective. Meanwhile, when they discuss other races/ethnicities, they are seen by many students from those groups as outsiders, not qualified to teach about other racial/ethnic groups. Minority Voices enables professors of such courses to bring other voices into the classroom and allows students to hear from members of multiple racial/ethnic groups. The chapters that come alive are those written by authors who are great writers as well as academics. For example, Vincent Parrillo’s description of his Irish/Italian upbringing is wonderfully vivid. I could practically taste the iced apple squares he describes savoring as a young boy in Paterson, New Jersey. Vincent Serravallo’s chapter about his family’s experience in “Bricktalia” in Ulster County, NY during the first half of the 20th century is colorful and gripping. Mark Hutter also shows some great writing skills in his first-rate “Jewish American Ethnic AutoEthnography” of “Bensonhoist.” All three chapters are excellent means of bringing sociological concepts and theory to life. Erica Chito Childs’s stories of dating, marrying, and having biracial children with a black man are not as sociologically grounded, but this memoir is powerfully written and disturbing. Woody Doane’s chapter, in which he describes growing up as a member of the dominant racial/ethnic group, is an invaluable and necessary addition to this reader. Doane’s extensive work in this area, combined with his own racial/ethnic background, allow him to talk about the advantages of majority group membership without making other majority group members defensive. In an age in which the colorblind ideology of race seems pervasive, this is a vital chapter. I only wish Doane’s selection did not stand by itself in this section. There are many other strong scholar-writers who could have been tapped to contribute to this section. Minority Voices had the potential of being a classic and required reading for racial/ethnic relations classes. Unfortunately, the Minority Voices that was published did not reach those heights. It does, however, contain some standout chapters that would liven up any class and bring fresh perspectives to the classroom.

39.95 cloth. ISBN: 0691119309.

As schools in the United States become more and more output driven within the context of current federal and state educational policies, students, educators, administrators, and policymakers are being held accountable for improving the academic achievement of all students. In particular, as our society continues to become increasingly diverse, there is now a national focus on the achievement gaps between students of different social backgrounds (socioeconomic, racial-ethnic, language and disabilities). In fact, with the recent passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), federal education policy now mandates that states, districts, and schools monitor achievement gaps among different student groups.

Achievement Gaps Among Racial-Ethnic Groups in the United States

Divided into two sections, the first section of this book provides insight into the relationships between poverty, race, educational outcomes, and housing patterns as they affect the life chances of African-American children. The second section includes a retrospective look at the Brown case.