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Sean Kelly "Are Teachers Tracked? On what basis and with what consequences" This paper starts with the perspective that, far from experiencing an undifferentiated career, teachers in any given school experience a wide variety of working conditions. In particular, it examines the phenomenon of teacher tracking. First, in a review of previous research it is demonstrated that the track level of students taught has a significant impact on teacher efficacy and measures of satisfaction. Further, little is currently done at the school level to mitigate these effects. New data is then introduced from the 1990-91 Schools and Staffing Survey to investigate how teachers are sorted into teacher tracks. A teacher's average track level appears to be primarily a function of educational credentials and experience. Interestingly, those teachers who place an emphasis on expertise in their subject matter as opposed to pedagogy more often teach in the higher tracks. Paper prepared for the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Anaheim CA, 2001. "Between and Within School Determinants of the Black-White Gap in Mathematics Course-taking" This analysis examines how allocation processes within and between schools contribute to the black-white gap in mathematics course-taking. Prior research has often shown that after controlling for prior achievement and social class, that black and white students have an equal probability of placement into the higher tracks. These findings fail to take into account the segregated nature of America's public schools though, and are thus limited in their power to detect racial effects. Using Multi-level regression models for ordered categorical outcomes the author shows that within schools, the relative odds of black and white students being in a given math sequence are dependent on the sector and racial composition of the school. Within integrated public schools black students actually experience a disadvantage in mathematics course placement. By contrast, at predominantly black schools, and at catholic schools, black students experience the same or even better chances as white students of being enrolled in upper track math courses. After controlling for student achievement, the between-school component of course enrollment probabilities, or the inclusiveness of the school, favors predominantly black and Catholic schools as well. "Do Increased Levels of Parental Involvement Account for the Social Class Difference in Track Placement?" The objective of this paper is to determine whether increased levels of school involvement among socially advantaged parents account for their children's advantage in track placement. Prior research has suggested that parents of higher social class score higher on direct measures of involvement, and that this type of involvement may mediate the effect of social class on track placement. The author tests this hypothesis using regression models for categorical outcomes with a nationally representative database containing student transcript data on course-taking and both student and parent indicators of parental involvement. He finds that while parents of higher social class are more involved, there is no evidence that greater levels of parental involvement can account for their students' advantage in gaining access to higher track math courses. In contrast, additional analyses indicate that a third of the social class effect can be accounted for by student expectations. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2001 American Education Research Association meetings in Seattle. Adam Gamoran & Sean Kelly, "How Schools Work to Produce What is Learned in School: Teaching and Learning in Secondary School English Classrooms" Barr and Dreeben's (1983) How Schools Work transformed research on school achievement by developing a conception of the educational production process that was sensitive to how schools are organized for instruction. Questions about how achievement is produced focus on both levels and distributions of achievement, but inequality of achievement is the more pressing social problem, particularly when it comes to literacy. What are the sources of unequal literacy? This paper explores school, classroom, and student characteristics related to inequality in literacy, as manifested on a test of writing performance among middle and high school students. The study included 19 schools, 72 classrooms, and over 1200 students, with large proportions of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Multilevel models reveal that race/ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities are more salient between classes within schools, than they are between schools. Within classes, Hispanic students score lower than non-Hispanic whites, and students with greater home resources score higher than those with less. Tracking and instruction account for part of the class-level inequalities related to student social backgrounds. Paper presented at the Conference on "Stability and Change in Education: Structure, Process, and Outcomes" held in honor of Robert Dreeben's contributions to the Sociology of Education Center for Research on Educational Opportunity, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN, November 2001. |