Selection and Allocation Within Schools: Some Causes and Consequences of Curriculum Placement

This study examined the class formation procedures used in 22 elementary schools from two districts, as well as the influence these procedures had on the class composition of 200 classes, 56 of which were combination classes (classes with students from two grade levels). Principals were interviewed about their procedures for assigning students to classes, and students completed pretest measures. The major finding was that principals, in an effort to ease the burden that combination classes placed on teachers, assigned higher ability and more independent students to these classes, a strategy that raised the ability level of combination classes but lowered it in adjacent single-grade classes. This study suggests that it may be profitable to conceptualize both elementary and secondary school student assignment procedures as the same mechanism, a mechanism that creates particular K–12 curricular paths for students.

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confidence: 99%

Class Formation and Composition in Elementary Schools

Burns

Mason

1998

“…Both draw on previous research examining the educational achievement process (see, for example, Alexander & Cook, 1982;Alexander & McDill, 1976;Coleman, Hoffer, & Kilgore, 1982a, 1982bHoffer, Greeley, & Coleman, 1984).…”

Section: Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Analyses performed by Sewell, Hauser, and others based on a longitudinal survey of Wisconsin seniors illuminated the critical role of social psychological variables in mediating the impact of family background on educational attainment (see, e.g., Hauser, 1972;Sewell, Haller, & Ohlendorf, 1970;Sewell, Haller, & Portes, 1969;Sewell & Hauser, 1972). Coleman's early work (Coleman et al, 1966) and more recent examinations of the educational achievement process have also focused on the attitudes and aspirations of students, their parents, and their peers as critical factors in determining educational achievement (see, e.g., Alexander & Cook, 1982;Alexander, Cook, & McDill, 1978;Alexander & McDill, 1976;Ekstrom, 1985;Goertz, 1985).…”

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confidence: 99%

Gaining Ground: Values and High School Success

Hanson

Ginsburg

1988

In this paper, we use the nationally representative "High School and Beyond" (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 1983) data to examine the relationship between a wide range of values that stress the notion of responsibility and high school students' achievement test scores, grades, discipline problems, and dropout status. We also examine the extent to which students' behaviors outside of school (e.g., watching television, doing homework, reading, and working for pay) mediate the relationship between values and high school outcomes. Two structural equation models-one using attainment levels as outcomes and one using change scores as outcomes-are analyzed. Results from both models show that when students, their parents, and their peers believe in values and accompanying behaviors that stress responsibility, students have a better chance of achieving success in high school. Values are found to have both direct effects on school outcomes and indirect effects through out-of-school behaviors. The effect of values as a whole is consistently larger than the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) when predicting both level of student performance and changes in student performance.Recently, a number of educators and researchers have suggested that the attitudes and values of students, their parents, and their peers play an extremely important role in the educational achievement process and may be a key part of the solution to America's education dilemmas. In Walberg's (1984) analysis of factors that influence high school learning, he found that parental concern and encouragement were twice as predictive of academic learning as was family socioeconomic status.

“…In the United States the dominant theoretical debate on tracking has revolved around whether tracking is meritocratic (see Alexander & McDill, 1976;Alexander, Cook, & McDill, 1978;Rosenbaum, 1976;Finley, 1984;Oakes, 1985;Gamoran & Berends, 1987;Gamoran & Mare, 1989;Natriello, Pallas, & Alexander, 1989;Slavin, 1995;Kilgore, 1991;Page, 1991;Oakes & Guiton, 1995;Dauber, Alexander, & Entwisle, 1996;Hallinan, 1996). Educational tracking has been identified as a major mechanism through which inequality of educational opportunity is transmitted or maintained (Cicourel & Kitsuse, 1977;Oakes, 1985;Kilgore, 1991;Page, 1991;Oakes & Guiton, 1995), but some studies suggest that there is significant variation in tracking procedures, especially along salient dimensions of inclusivity and electivity (see Gamoran, 1986Gamoran, , 1992.…”

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confidence: 99%

What Is Tracking? Cultural Expectations in the United States, Germany, and Japan

LeTendre

Hofer

Shimizu

2003

171

113

On the basis of the TIMSS Case Study Project data collected in the United States, Japan, and Germany in 1994-1995, this article examines the phenomenon of tracking as part of curricular differentiation and student placement practices in public K-12 school systems. The authors document clear national differences in differentiation and placement measures and summarize the history of conflict over those measures. Analysis of respondent perceptions and beliefs about differentiation and placement (what people think "tracking" is) shows that nation-specific values and attitudes (i.e., cultures) determine which forms of curricular differentiation are legitimated and which contested. Dominant cultural beliefs about what students are capable of and the role that schools should play in educating them create different points of conflict over tracking. . Her areas of specialization are culture, cognition, and schooling; learning strategies and motivation; and beliefs about knowledge and knowing (personal epistemology). HIDETADA SHIMIZU is an Associate Professor in the