Social Equity Theory and Racial-Ethnic Achievement Gaps

Social Equity Theory and Racial-Ethnic Achievement Gaps

Social Equity Theory and Racial-Ethnic Achievement Gaps

Clark McKown Rush University Medical Center

In the United States, racial-ethnic differences on tests of school readiness and academic achievement continue. A complete understanding of the origins of racial-ethnic achievement gaps is still lacking. This article describes social equity theory (SET), which proposes that racial-ethnic achievement gaps originate from two kinds of social process, direct and signal influences, that these two kinds of processes operate across develop- mental contexts, and that the kind of influence and the setting in which they are enacted change with age. Evidence supporting each of SET’s key propositions is discussed in the context of a critical review of research on the Black–White achievement gap. Specific developmental hypotheses derived from SET are described, along with proposed standards of evidence for testing those hypotheses.

This article offers an account of the varied social processes that contribute to mean differences in test scores between children from different racial-ethnic groups, spanning preschool to high school (Jencks & Phillips, 1998; Lee, 2002; Lee & Burkam, 2002). In the United States, on measures of school readiness and academic achievement, Asian Americans achieve higher average scores than White students, who in turn achieve higher average scores than their Black and Latino peers (Jencks & Phillips, 1998; Lee, 2002; Reardon & Galindo, 2009). Because it has received a great deal of attention, the Black– White achievement gap is used to illustrate the major points of this article. The broad goal of this article, however, is to propose a model that applies to a variety of racial-ethnic and other achievement gaps.

Racial-ethnic achievement gaps are substantial life-span phenomena. By all accounts, the magni- tude of the Black–White achievement gap is consid- erable, ranging from .5 to 1.0 SD, depending on the sample and the measure (Jencks & Phillips, 1998; Lee, 2002; Reardon & Galindo, 2009; Reardon & Robinson, 2007; Vanneman, Hamilton, Anderson, & Rahman, 2009). The Black–White achievement gap affects individuals and the generation to which they belong, beginning in early childhood and spanning

all educational levels (Farkas, 2003). In terms of school readiness, research has consistently demon- strated that prior to school entry, Black students achieve lower average scores than White students (Brooks-Gunn, Klebanov, & Duncan, 1996; Duncan, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov, 1994; Lee & Burkam, 2002). Over the course of elementary school, the Black–White achievement gap appears to grow (Farkas, 2003; Fryer & Levitt, 2004, 2005; Phillips, Crouse, & Ralph, 1998).

The Black–White achievement gap is a highly consequential social problem. School readiness and academic achievement are associated with the kinds of jobs and wages people are able to secure. Racial- ethnic achievement gaps that begin at school entry and persist through school completion thus can influence racial-ethnic gaps in socioeconomic status (SES) across the life span (e.g., Levin, 2009; Reardon & Robinson, 2007). In turn, SES is robustly associ- ated with health (Adler, Boyce, Chesney, & Cohen, 1994; Levin, 2009). Furthermore, the health of any democratic society is predicated on the ability of its population to make informed choices at the ballot box. When large segments of the population are inadequately educated, democracy’s health is at risk.

As with any social problem, how policy makers, practitioners, and the public formulate the Black– White achievement gap’s cause will guide what is done, and what is not done, to solve the problem (Humphreys & Rappaport, 1993; McKown, 2005;

This study was made possible by a William T. Grant Founda- tion Scholar’s Award to Clark McKown. Thanks to Laura Gum- biner, Anne Gregory, Stephen Quintana, Michael Strambler, and Rhona Weinstein for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Clark McKown, Rush NeuroBehavioral Center, 4711 Golf Road, Suite 1100, Skokie, IL 60076. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected].

© 2012 The Author Child Development © 2012 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2013/8404-0002 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12033

Child Development, July/August 2013, Volume 84, Number 4, Pages 1120–1136

Seidman, 1983). Almost all accounts of racial-ethnic achievement gaps acknowledge the influence of multiple processes in multiple settings (e.g., Boykin, 1986; Garcia-Coll, 1990; Weinstein, 2002; Weinstein & McKown, 1998). Nevertheless, much prior work on the Black–White achievement gap has focused on specific processes operating in a limited range of contexts. For example, some have argued that racial differences in genetic endowment cause the gap (Jensen, 1969; Rushton & Jensen, 2005). Others have focused on the contribution of SES and family factors (Brooks-Gunn, Klebanov, Smith, Duncan, & Lee, 2003), cultural values (Ogbu, 2002; Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2002), academic stereotypes (Steele & Aronson, 1995), and degree of match between home and school environments (Brice-Heath, 1983; Tharp, 1989).

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More focused accounts are sometimes criticized because they do not account for the entire racial- ethnic achievement gap, even though they are often interpreted as doing so. For example, in a critical review, Sackett, Hardison, and Cullen (2004) acknowledged that one social process—stereotype threat—can depress Black students’ test scores. However, they strongly questioned common interpretations of the research that stereotype threat is the sole cause of the Black–White test score gap, and that if it were eliminated, the gap would there- fore disappear. Social Equity Theory and Racial-Ethnic Achievement Gaps

That theory and research have developed in a targeted way is understandable—evaluating multi- factorial accounts of the gap’s origin is challenging. The conceptual challenge is to broaden inquiry without mounting a theoretical “fishing expeditions” that provide few insights. The practical challenge is to muster resources to meaningfully evaluate the combined influences of multiple social processes across key developmental contexts. What is needed is a theory broad and flexible enough to account for varied sources of social influence, yet specific enough to provide a parsimonious account of the achievement gap.

The purpose of this article is to describe social equity theory (SET), a novel account of social processes that together give rise to racial-ethnic achievement gaps. SET provides a heuristic for organizing and integrating research on racial-ethnic achievement gaps. SET is proposed as a theory because: (a) it makes specific commitments about the social processes that are relevant to understanding the achievement gap, (b) it offers a causal explanatory framework to explain the racial-ethnic achievement gap, and (c) it generates specific, falsifiable hypotheses.

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SET Defined

SET describes social processes that contribute to racial-ethnic achievement gaps. SET explains mean differences in achievement by members of different racial-ethnic groups. There is, of course, consider- able within-group variability in academic readiness and achievement. Within-group and between-group differences in academic readiness and achievement are distinct. SET does not address the causes of individual variability in achievement. Rather, it explains factors that together create between-group differences in school readiness and achievement.

In the context of SET, the term social processes refers to transactions between individuals, including verbal and nonverbal communication directed from one person to another. The term social processes also refers to communications between individuals and social settings, in which an event or characteristic of the setting—apart from interpersonal interactions— communicates something of social consequence. For example, a poster depicting a civil rights event on a classroom wall may communicate something of social consequence without involving an interper- sonal communicative transaction.

Social Equity Theory and Racial-Ethnic Achievement Gaps

SET adopts an ecological perspective (Bronfen- brenner, 1977; Kelly, 1987; Spencer, 1999; Weinstein, 2002) to formulate what social processes in what contexts create and maintain racial-ethnic achieve- ment gaps. SET includes four propositions about the origins of racial-ethnic achievement gaps:

1. Two classes of social process influence racial- ethnic achievement gaps. Direct influences are social processes that support achievement. Direct influences contribute to the racial-ethnic achievement gap when they are distributed dif- ferently to people from different racial-ethnic groups. Signal influences are cues that commu- nicate negative expectations about a child’s racial-ethnic group. When children from nega- tively stereotyped groups detect such cues, this can erode achievement.

2. Signal influences depend on children’s ability to detect cues signaling a stereotyped expecta- tion, and this ability increases significantly dur- ing the elementary grades.

3. Social processes affecting the achievement gap operate across a limited range of key develop- mental settings, and the relevant settings change lawfully with age.

4. Together, relevant direct and signal influences across developmental contexts account for the achievement gap.