As you'll read below, " The income achievement gap is now considerably larger than the black-white gap, a reversal of the pattern fifty years ago."
And this: " As the children of the rich do better in school, and those who do better in school are more likely to become rich, we risk producing an even more unequal and economically polarized society."
The widening academic achievement gap between the rich and the poor: New evidence and possible explanations
Year of Publication:
2011
Editor/s:
In R. Murnane & G. Duncan (Eds.)
Publication:
Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality and the Uncertain Life Chances of Low-Income Children
Publisher:
New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press
Abstract: In this chapter I examine whether and how the relationship between family socioeconomic characteristics and academic achievement has changed during the last fifty years. In particular, I investigate the extent to which the rising income inequality of the last four decades has been paralleled by a similar increase in the income achievement gradient. As the income gap between high- and low-income families has widened, has the achievement gap between children in high- and low-income families also widened?
The answer, in brief, is yes. The achievement gap between children from high- and low-income families is roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty-five years earlier. In fact, it appears that the income achievement gap has been growing for at least fifty years, though the data are less certain for cohorts of children born before 1970. In this chapter, I describe and discuss these trends in some detail. In addition to the key finding that the income achievement gap appears to have widened substantially, there are a number of other important findings.
First, the income achievement gap (defined here as the income difference between a child from a family at the 90th percentile of the family income distribution and a child from a family at the 10th percentile) is now nearly twice as large as the black-white achievement gap. Fifty years ago, in contrast, the black-white gap was one and a half to two times as large as the income gap. Second, as Greg Duncan and Katherine Magnuson note in chapter 3 of this volume, the income achievement gap is large when children enter kindergarten and does not appear to grow (or narrow) appreciably as children progress through school. Third, although rising income inequality may play a role in the growing income achievement gap, it does not appear to be the dominant factor. The gap appears to have grown at least partly because of an increase in the association between family income and children’s academic achievement for families above the median income level: a given difference in family incomes now corresponds to a 30 to 60 percent larger difference in achievement than it did for children born in the 1970s. Moreover, evidence from other studies suggests that this may be in part a result of increasing parental investment in children’s cognitive development. Finally, the growing income achievement gap does not appear to be a result of a growing achievement gap between children with highly and less-educated parents. Indeed, the relationship between parental education and children’s achievement has remained relatively stable during the last fifty years, whereas the relationship between income and achievement has grown sharply. Family income is now nearly as strong as parental education in predicting children’s achievement.
This chapter is now published in the book Whither Opportunity:
https://www.russellsage.org/publications/whither-opportunity
https://www.russellsage.org/publications/whither-opportunity
Research Areas:
APA Citation
Media Mentions
May 07, 2012. Minnesota Public Radio. So should schools focus their resources on the racial achievement gap or the income gap?
April 25, 2012. The Huffington Post. A New Take on 'No Excuses' - Tackling Poverty to Provide Meaningful Opportunity
The socioeconomic status of a child’s parents has always been one of the strongest
predictors of the child’s academic achievement and educational attainment. As Greg Duncan and Katherine Magnuson point out in chapter 3 in this volume, students in the bottom quintile of family socioeconomic status score more than a standard deviation below those in the top quintile on standardized tests of math and reading when they enter kindergarten. They note that these differences do not appear to narrow as children progress through school.
Duncan and Magnuson are not the first to point out this strong association. Almost fifty
years ago, in 1966, the Coleman Report famously highlighted the relationship between family
socioeconomic status and student achievement (Coleman et al. 1966). The federal Head Start
program was started in the 1960s as part of the War on Poverty to reduce poverty and thus to
weaken the link between family poverty and children’s cognitive and social development (Kagan 2002; Zigler and Muenchow 1992).
The relationship between family socioeconomic characteristics and student achievement is one of the most robust patterns in educational scholarship, yet the causes and mechanisms of this relationship have been the subject of considerable disagreement and debate (see, for example, Bowles and Gintis 1976, 2002; Brooks-Gunn and Duncan 1997; Duncan and Brooks-Gunn 1997; Duncan, Brooks Gunn, and Klebanov 1994; Herrnstein and Murray
1994; Jacoby and Glauberman 1995; Lareau 1989, 2003).
1994; Jacoby and Glauberman 1995; Lareau 1989, 2003).
An ironic consequence of the regularity of this pattern is that we tend to think of the
relationship between socioeconomic status and children’s academic achievement as a sociological necessity, rather than as the product of a set of social conditions, policy choices, and educational practices. As a result, much of the scholarly research on the socioeconomic achievement gradient has focused largely on trying to understand the mechanisms through which socioeconomic differences among families—in income, parental educational attainment, family structure, neighborhood conditions, school quality, and parental preferences, investments, and choices— lead 4 to differences in children’s academic and educational success. The bulk of this prior research has been based primarily on cross-sectional or single-cohort longitudinal studies. This research is less concerned with documenting the size of socioeconomic achievement gradients than with investigating the mechanisms that produce them.
As a result, we know little about the trends in socioeconomic achievement gaps over a
lengthy period of time. We do not know, for example, if socioeconomic gaps are larger or smaller now than they were fifty years ago, or even twenty-five years ago. This is in contrast to what we know about the trends in racial-achievement gaps, particularly the black-white gap, which have received considerable scholarly and policy attention in the last decade or two (see, for example, Jencks and Phillips 1998; Magnuson and Waldfogel 2008). Trends in socioeconomic achievement gaps—the achievement disparities between children from high- and low-income families or between children from families with high or low levels of parental educational attainment—have received far less attention.
The question posed in this chapter is whether and how that relationship between family
socioeconomic characteristics and academic achievement has changed during the last fifty years.In particular, I investigate the extent to which the rising income inequality of the last four decades has been paralleled by a similar increase in the income achievement gradient. As the income gap between high- and low-income families has widened, has the achievement gap between children in high- and low-income families also widened?
socioeconomic characteristics and academic achievement has changed during the last fifty years.In particular, I investigate the extent to which the rising income inequality of the last four decades has been paralleled by a similar increase in the income achievement gradient. As the income gap between high- and low-income families has widened, has the achievement gap between children in high- and low-income families also widened?
The answer, in brief, is yes. The achievement gap between children from high- and lowincome families is roughly 30 to 40 percent larger among children born in 2001 than among those
born twenty-five years earlier. In fact, it appears that the income achievement gap has been
growing steadily for at least fifty years, though the data are less certain for cohorts of children born before 1970. In this chapter I describe and discuss these trends in some detail. In addition to the key finding that the income achievement gap appears to have widened substantially, there are a 5 number of other important findings.
First, the income achievement gap (defined here as the income difference between a child
from a family at the 90th percentile of the family income distribution and a child from a family at the 10th percentile) is now more than twice as large as the black-white achievement gap. In
contrast to this, fifty years ago the black-white gap was one and a half to two times as large as the income gap. Second, as Duncan and Magnuson (in chapter 3, this volume) note, the income achievement gap is large when children enter kindergarten and does not appear to grow (or narrow) appreciably as children progress through school. Third, although rising income inequality may play a role in the growing income achievement gap, it does not appear to be the dominant factor.
The gap appears to have grown at least partly because of an increase in the association
between family income and children’s academic achievement for families above the median income level: a given difference in family incomes now corresponds to a 30 to 60 percent larger difference in achievement than it did for children born in the 1970s. Evidence from other studies suggests that this may be in part a result of increasing parental investment in children’s cognitive development.
between family income and children’s academic achievement for families above the median income level: a given difference in family incomes now corresponds to a 30 to 60 percent larger difference in achievement than it did for children born in the 1970s. Evidence from other studies suggests that this may be in part a result of increasing parental investment in children’s cognitive development.
Finally, the growing income achievement gap does not appear to be a result of a growing
achievement gap between children with highly educated and less-educated parents. In fact, the relationship between parental education and children’s achievement has remained relatively stable during the last fifty years, while the relationship between income and achievement has grown sharply. Family income is now nearly as strong as parental education in predicting children’s achievement.
Continue Reading at: http://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/reardon%20whither%20opportunity%20-%20chapter%205.pdf
Conclusion
Most, but not all, of the evidence presented in this chapter suggests that the achievement gap
between children from high- and low-income families has grown substantially in recent decades. The income achievement gap is now considerably larger than the black-white gap, a reversal of the pattern fifty years ago. In some ways, this is not surprising. The 1950s and 1960s were characterized by historically low levels of income inequality and high levels of racial inequality, not only in educational achievement and attainment but in access to educational opportunity, labor markets, housing markets, and health care.
Beginning in the 1970s, this pattern began to reverse. Efforts to desegregate schools and hospitals, affirmative-action programs, enforcement of fair housing laws, and gradual but important changes in racial attitudes all led to reductions in the stark racial disparities of the 1950s and 1960s. Although racial disparities are still manifestly evident in many aspects of U.S. society, these disparities are considerably smaller in many ways than they were fifty years ago.
At the same time, however, income inequality in the United States began to grow sharply in
the 1970s, a trend that continues to the present. The gap between the rich and the poor has26
widened significantly, particularly among families with children. Moreover, the Reagan-era changes in social policy—particularly changes in housing policies, income-support policies, and other social safety nets for low-income families (Katz 1989, 1995)—have made life much more difficult for lowincome families. Not only do the poor have less money than they did before, they may have fewer social support systems as well.
the 1970s, a trend that continues to the present. The gap between the rich and the poor has26
widened significantly, particularly among families with children. Moreover, the Reagan-era changes in social policy—particularly changes in housing policies, income-support policies, and other social safety nets for low-income families (Katz 1989, 1995)—have made life much more difficult for lowincome families. Not only do the poor have less money than they did before, they may have fewer social support systems as well.
It is tempting to read this chapter as evidence of a profound shift from a society in which
race is more consequential than family income to one in which family income appears more
determinative than race. Certainly the trends in the income- and racial-achievement gaps are
consistent with this explanation. The fact that the relationship between parental education and
achievement has changed relatively little during the same time period is consistent with this as well, suggesting that income, not human capital (at least as measured by parental education), is the important socioeconomic factor at work.
However, many of the other patterns in this chapter are not fully consistent with the simple
explanation that income inequality has driven these trends. First, the analyses described in the chapter and the online appendix show that the income achievement gaps do not grow in the ways that would be predicted by the changes in income inequality. Although income inequality grew sharply for families with below-median incomes during the 1970s and 1980s, the income achievement gap among children from these families was largely unchanged. The achievement gap did grow among children from above-median-income families, but this appears to be better explained by an increase in the association between income and achievement, not by increases in income inequality. Evidence from other studies suggests that parental investment in their children’s cognitive development has grown during the last half-century, particularly for higher-income families, a pattern that may explain the growing returns to income during this time period.
There are a number of other possible explanations for the evident trends in the income
achievement gap. Education policy increasingly focuses on standardized-test scores as outcome27 measures for schools; as these scores become more important, families may be increasingly likely to invest in improving their children’s scores. Likewise, cultural perceptions of the role of parents have changed throughout the twentieth century to focus increasingly on early-childhood cognitive and psychological development, which may lead parents with resources to invest more in their young children’s development.
In sum, the forces at work behind the rising income achievement gap are likely complex and
interconnected. Certainly more research to understand the causes of these trends is necessary. Equally important, however, is research to understand the consequences of these patterns. At the same time that family income has become more predictive of children’s academic achievement, so have educational attainment and cognitive skills become more predictive of adults’ earnings. The combination of these trends creates a feedback mechanism that may decrease inter-generational mobility. As the children of the rich do better in school, and those who do better in school are more likely to become rich, we risk producing an even more unequal and economically polarized society.
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