| Jacob Hibel
Pennsylvania State University
Effects of performance-based organizational differentiation on the educational productivity and equality of American elementary schools
FINAL REPORT
The present study draws upon nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 to examine variation in children’Äôs early academic performance along racial/ethnic, generational status, and national origin lines. This study comprises three distinct analytic chapters. The first uses a multilevel logistic regression approach to examine patterns of between-child variation in cognitive and socioemotional school readiness. The second analytic chapter examines children’Äôs reading and mathematics ability growth from kindergarten through eighth grade using a three-level mixed-effects modeling framework. The final component of the present study examines variation in adolescents’Äô reading and mathematics self-concept prior to high school entry using a two-level random-effects modeling approach. Results suggest that immigrant generational status is an important moderator of racial/ethnic variation along several measures of academic success. Among non-Asian minority children, those with foreign-born mothers tend to demonstrate lower levels of school readiness and flatter ability growth trajectories than third-plus generation children. Among Asian children, however, children of foreign-born mothers experience advantages relative to their first and second generation counterparts. After adjusting for an array of family background characteristics, children from racial/ethnic minority and immigrant families demonstrate comparable ability growth trajectories to non-Hispanic white children of native-born mothers, with the exception of non-Hispanic black and first/second generation Mexican children, who fall increasingly behind over the elementary and middle school years. Children of immigrant mothers generally demonstrate higher levels of academic self-concept than children of native-born mothers, and most minority adolescents have comparable levels of academic self-concept to non-Hispanic white adolescents after adjusting for family background characteristics.
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