Stephen J. Caldas

Effect of School Population Socioeconomic Status on Individual Academic Achievement

ABSTRACT The relationship between the socioeconomic status (SES) of peers and individual academic achievement was examined in this study. This question was investigated while a variety of sociodemographic factors were being controlled, including a students own SES. Student SES was measured by using participation in the federal free/reduced–price lunch program as an indicator of poverty status, and parental educational and occupational background as a measure of family social status. These measures were aggregated to the school level to define the SES of the peer population. Student achievement is a factor score of the three 10th–grade components of the Louisiana Graduation Exit Examination. Peer family social status in particular does have a significant and substantive independent effect on individual academic achievement, only slightly less than an individuals own family social status.

Multilevel Examination of Student, School, and District-Level Effects on Academic Achievement

Abstract The authors examined the relationship between individual family structure, school family structure, and school effectiveness—defined as school academic achievement. The relationships were examined while controlling for important school and district-level input and process factors. School family structure had a much stronger relationship with school achievement than either school socioeconomic status or school racial composition. Neither district-level process nor input factors mitigated the strong relationship between school family structure and school academic achievement. School-level family structure had a more important association with individual-level achievement than even an individuals own family structure. The relationship could not be accounted for by an array of district-level factors.

The Academic Achievement of Vietnamese American Students: Ethnicity as Social Capital

Abstract In this study, we investigate whether ethnicity, understood as a set of social relations among ethnic group members and not simply as a social category, may be seen as a source of unequal educational outcomes. We focus on Vietnamese youth in a particular U.S. community. Using data from an achievement test taken by public high school students in Louisiana, we investigate whether or not there are differences in test scores among Vietnamese, black and white students in two schools where there are large numbers of Vietnamese students. We find that the Vietnamese outperform the other groups, and that white students do somewhat better than black students. We consider whether these differences can be attributed to socioeconomic differences or differences in family structure among the groups and find that once we control for socioeconomic factors, the Vietnamese do even better relative to the other groups. We then look at data from a survey administered to Vietnamese students in these schools and find th...

WHITE ENROLLMENT IN NONPUBLIC SCHOOLS, PUBLIC SCHOOL RACIAL COMPOSITION, AND STUDENT PERFORMANCE

This research note presents preliminary research into the relationship between the racial composition of public schools in school districts and the percentages of white students in nonpublic schools in those districts. Specifically, we ask two questions: Is the enrollment of whites in non-public schools associated with minority predominance in public schools? Is there an association between the enrollment of whites outside of the public school system and the academic performance of students in the public school system? Using two- and three-level hierarchical linear models, we find that school districts that have more whites in nonpublic schools tend to contain public schools with larger percentages of minority students. Further, at both the school and individual levels, achievement test scores tend to be lower in districts in which white students tend to be enrolled outside of the public school system. In addition, the achievement gap between white and minority students tends to be greater in districts with relatively more students in nonpublic schools. These findings are consistent with the argument that the withdrawal of white students from the public school system is negatively related to academic achievement because it tends to concentrate minority students in public schools.

Adolescents and deviance in a Vietnamese American community: A theoretical synthesis

This article uses qualitative data from fieldwork in a Vietnamese American community to identify sources of deviant group membership among Vietnamese American adolescents. It finds that the deviant group membership of these adolescents may be accounted for by a synthesis of three of the major theoretical explanations of deviant behavior. The primary source of deviant group membership among these young people is a failure to integrate them, through their families, into their own ethnic community and into the larger American society. Three major types of families that fail to achieve these types of social integration are described. Young people who have not been socially integrated effectively engage in a process of social learning in which they acquire traits and attitudes of an age‐segregated youth society. They are then labeled as “undesirables” by the Vietnamese community, as they fail to conform to the shared expectations of Vietnamese American adults. These expectations, it is maintained, are the prod...

Explanatory Factors of the Black Achievement Gap in Montréal's Public and Private Schools A Multivariate Analysis

This exploratory analysis uses multiple regression modeling to help shed light on the correlates of the Black achievement gap in Montréals public and private secondary schools. Using school-level testing data from Québecs Ministry of Education, the authors show that there is a Black achievement gap, and that this gap is highly associated with school socio-economic status, peer family structure, and average age of the student bodys parents. An important secondary finding is that there remains a significant positive association of private schooling on academic achievement, even after controlling for race and all other central independent variables.

Language Immersion and Cultural Identity: Conflicting Influences and Values.

This study examines the developing cultural and linguistic identities of three French/English bilingual children reared in two linguistic cultures: American and Quebecois. The childrens mother is a French-English bilingual of Quebecois ancestry; the father is a French-English bilingual and lifetime native of the United States. They have reared their three children, a boy 13 and identical twin girls 11, in a mainly French-speaking home since birth. The children have acquired English-speaking skills predominantly outside of the home in South Louisiana, in both all English-speaking and French-immersion academic environments. Additionally, they have spent brief periods of complete academic immersion in French-Canadian schools, and spend summers in an all French-speaking environment in Quebec. The study data include field notes, tape recordings, self-perception surveys, and teacher-administered surveys. The study results indicate that the adolescent boy, who speaks more English than French, tends to identify ...

A Case Study of Teachers' Perceptions of School Desegregation and the Redistribution of Social and Academic Capital.

This case study gauges the perceptions of teachers to the “harm and benefit thesis” of Coleman’s social-capital hypothesis. The study uses data from one de facto segregated southern school system that hastily implemented a court order in 2000. The study collects the perceptions of teachers at five predominantly middle-class White schools that received 460 lower socioeconomic status African American students ordered bussed when their inner-city schools were closed. Sixty-percent of the teachers feel that the African American students are better off in the White schools. However, only 11% feel that the White students are better off than before the busing. Open-ended responses reveal that most teacher comments are negative, with fully 40% of teachers specifically indicating that busing had increased discipline problems. The study findings undermine the notion that transferring Black students to majority White schools is necessarily a superior pedagogical strategy.

Cultural influences on French/English language dominance of three Louisiana children

In this study the authors use qualitative and quantitative research methods to help identify the cultural factors that influence the usage of household French by three French/English bilingual children in Louisiana. Using 24 months of weekly tape recordings of spontaneous dinnertime conversation, a ratio of French to English utterances is calculated, and correlated with linguistically significant events documented in field notes. The findings indicate that increased French communication is closely associated with proximate immersion in French‐speaking situations outside of the home, as well as with school French immersion. Increased English communication is associated with increased exposure to English‐only situations outside the home, removal from school French immersion, and increased exposure to American television within the home.