| Robert Ream
University of California, Santa Barbara
On the move: Student mobility as a contributing factor in achievement stratification between Mexican-Americans and non-Latino Whites
FINAL REPORT:
A critical issue facing U.S. schools and one with broad social implication is the persistent disparity in educational achievement between race/ethnic groups. This issue may be particularly pronounced for Mexican-Americans who constitute the vast majority of U.S. Latinos and are reportedly the most educationally at risk of all Latino subgroups. The results of this study suggest that student mobility (the practice of students changing schools for reasons other than promotion) and residential mobility help to perpetuate the achievement gap between Mexican-American and non-Latino White American students in secondary schools. More specifically, this study employs multiple research methods to probe links between mobility, social capital (i.e., relationships among individuals and between individuals and social structures) and the achievement gap, demonstrating that the mobility/social capital dynamic is an important mechanism by which mobility is particularly detrimental to Mexican-American adolescents. Findings from this study offer five reasons for this assertion. First, Mexican-Americans are more mobile than their non-Latino White counterparts, are over-represented among the highly mobile, and appear to be disadvantaged in terms of social capital accumulation. Second, mobility negatively impacts 12th grade math achievement, school engagement and school completion, and it also detracts from social capital accumulation. Third, within-group effect-size comparisons from the survey data coupled with the interview analysis suggest that the magnitude of the negative impact of each non-promotional school change on math achievement and social capital accumulation may be greater among Mexican-origin youth, leaving them particularly susceptible to its negative implications. Lastly, while social capital across domains is convertible into 12th grade math achievement among non-Latino Whites, public social networks represented by school and community social capital do not evidence convertibility at a statistically significant level among Mexican-origin adolescents. To combat the achievement gap, researchers face the important task of providing an empirical evaluation of those factors that really do contribute to educational inequality. This study suggests that the mobility/social capital dynamic is one such factor and its mitigation at least a partial solution to the problem.
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