Does high school racial composition matter? The effects of race and racial composition on high school students' perceptions and success.

As we enter the twenty-first century, many racial/ethnic groups are facing increased residential isolation as many court ordered desegregation rulings are being overturned. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the importance of school racial composition as a determinant of high school student academic achievement and dropping out. My research uses data from the High School Effectiveness Study of the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 (9,000 students from 247 metropolitan U.S.) to examine the influence of high school racial composition on student social and academic outcomes. Analyses, which include bivariate, mulitivariate, and multilevel techniques, examine the student and the school factors associated with mathematics and reading achievement, and dropping out. Analyses indicate that school racial composition is associated with academic outcomes. Schools that enroll fewer than 15% minority students have higher mean mathematics and reading achievement and fewer students who drop out than do schools with 50% or more minority students enrolled. However, school racial composition is not consistently significantly associated with academic belonging, social belonging, popularity, and student-teacher relationships. As compared to schools with more minority students enrolled, schools with less than 30% minority student populations are smaller, have higher average SES, fewer students in remedial classes, more students in college preparatory classes, and teachers who are more satisfied with their jobs, more collegial, and press their students to achieve. Schools with more minority students enrolled tend to be more disadvantaged than schools with fewer minority students. Multivariate and multilevel analyses show that it is not school racial composition, per so, but the other school characteristics that have a major influence on student academic outcomes. Most importantly, school average SES explains a large portion of the variance in mean school mathematics achievement, reading achievement, and the number of students whom drop out. School racial composition, along with student race and prior ability influence the probability of dropping out. Controlling for other factors, students are less likely to drop out in schools with 30--49% minority students than in schools with 15--29% minority students. School racial composition is associated with academic differences in achievement; however, most of the effect is a result of the different social composition of schools with different racial compositions.Ph.D.EducationEducational sociologyEthnic studiesSecondary educationSocial SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/132540/2/9977129.pd