Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-t6hkb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T20:26:45.677Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Education in Historical and Cultural Perspective

from Part II - Historical and Life Course Transitions: Economic and Demographic Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2019

By
Robert Crosnoe
Edited by
Ross D. Parke  and
Glen H. Elder, Jr.
Ross D. Parke
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside
Glen H. Elder, Jr.
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Get access

Summary

Education is a powerful determinant of young people’s futures and a key developmental context of their daily lives, but education is changing. The recent restructuring and globalization of the economy have increased the lifelong benefits of higher education in the US and many other developed countries, which in turn has created downward pressure on earlier stages of the educational systems. This chapter describes economic restructuring, its effects on returns to higher education and curricular differentiation, and what these effects mean for inequality in a globalizing and diversifying world. It then shifts attention to different kinds of policy and programmatic responses to inequality in a changing educational context, focusing on strategies to change schools, change curricula in schools, change connections between schools and families, and change the psychology of young people. The goal is to explore ways that developmentally informed, culturally responsive, and multilevel solutions can be developed to promote equality of opportunity and educational equity.

Keywords

educationinequality academic progresseconomic restructuring and educationcultural responsiveness in education
Type
Chapter
Information
Children in Changing Worlds
Sociocultural and Temporal Perspectives
 , pp. 131 - 162
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adelman, C. (2006). The Toolbox Revisited: Paths to degree completion from high school through college. Washington, DC: US Department of Education.Google Scholar
Alexander, K. L., Entwisle, D. R., & Olson, L. S. (2014). The Long Shadow: Family background, disadvantaged urban youth, and the transition to adulthood. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Arum, R. (2000). Schools and communities: Ecological and institutional dimensions. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 395–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baum, S. & Ma, J. (2007). Education Pays: The benefits of higher education for individuals and society. Washington, DC: College Board.Google Scholar
Bazelon, E. (2008). The next kind of integration. New York Times Magazine. July 20.Google Scholar
Bernhardt, A., Morris, M., Handcock, M. S., & Scott, M. A. (2001). Divergent Paths: Economic mobility in the new American labor market. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Boudon, R. (1974). Education, Opportunity, and Social Inequality. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Breen, R. & Goldthorpe, J. H. (2001). Class mobility and merit: The experience of two British birth cohorts. European Sociological Review, 17, 81–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Britto, P. R., Yoshikawa, H., & Boller, K. (2011). Quality of early childhood development programs in global contexts: Rationale for investment, conceptual framework and implications for equity. Social Policy Report, 25(2), 3–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryk, A. & Schneider, B. (2003). Trust in Schools: A core resource for improvement. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Buchmann, B., DiPrete, T. A., & McDaniel, A. (2008). Gender inequalities in education. Annual Review of Sociology, 34, 319–337.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchmann, C. & Park, H. (2009). Stratification and the formation of expectations in highly-differentiated educational systems. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 27, 245–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christenson, S. L. & Sheridan, S. M. (2001). School and Families: Creating essential connections for learning. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Clotfelter, C. T., Ladd, H. F., & Vigdor, J. L. (2005). Federal oversight, local control, and the specter of “resegregation” in southern schools. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series 11086.Google Scholar
Coleman, J. S. & Hoffer, T. (1987). Public and Private High Schools: The impact of communities, New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Cottrol, R. J., Diamond, R., & Ware, L. B. (2003). Brown v. Board of Education: Caste, culture, and the Constitution. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Cremin, L. A. (1957). The Republic and the School: Horace Mann on the education of free men. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Crosnoe, R. & Muller, C. (2009). Low-income students and the socioeconomic composition of public high schools. American Sociologial Review, 74, 709–730.Google Scholar
Crosnoe, R. (2011). Fitting in, Standing Out: Navigating the social challenges of high School to get an education. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crosnoe, R. (2014). Family socioeconomic status, peers, and adolescents’ path to college. Social Problems, 61, 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crosnoe, R. (2015). Continuities and consistencies across home and school systems. In Sheridan, S. M. & Moorman, E. (Eds.), Research on Family-School Partnerships: An interdisciplinary examination of state of the science and critical needs (pp. 61–80). New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Dee, T. S. & Penner, E. K. (2017). The causal effects of cultural relevance: Evidence from an ethnic studies curriculum. American Educational Research Journal, 54(1), 127–166.Google Scholar
Domina, T. (2005). Leveling the home advantage: Assessing the effectiveness of parental involvement. Sociology of Education, 78, 233–249.Google Scholar
Domina, T., McEachin, A., Penner, A., & Penner, E. (2015). Aiming high and falling short: California’s eighth-grade algebra-for-all effort. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37, 275–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Domina, T., Penner, A. M., Penner, E. K., & Conley, A. (2014). Algebra for All: California’s eighth-grade Algebra initiative as constrained curricula. Teachers College Record, 116, 1–32.Google Scholar
Domina, T. & Saldana, J. (2012). Does raising the bar level the playing field? Mathematics curricular intensification and inequality in American high schools, 1982–2004. American Educational Research Journal, 49, 685–708.Google Scholar
Duncan, G. J., Brooks-Gunn, J., Yeung, W. J., & Smith, J. R. (1998). How much does childhood poverty affect the life chances of children? American Sociological Review, 63, 406–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duncan, G. J. & Murnane, R. J. (Eds.). (2011). Whither Opportunity? Rising inequality, schools, and children’s life chances. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Eccles, J. (2011). Gendered educational and occupational choices: Applying the Eccles et al. model of achievement-related choices. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 35(3), 195–201.Google Scholar
Epstein, J. L. (2011) School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Preparing educators and improving schools. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Erikson, R., Goldthorpe, J. H., Jackson, M., Yaish, M., & Cox, D. R. (2005). On class differentials in educational attainment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102, 9730–9733.Google Scholar
Fischer, C. S. & Hout, M. (2006). Century of Difference: How America changed in the last one hundred years. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Flinspach, S. E. & Banks, K. E. (2005). Moving beyond race: Socioeconomic diversity as a race-neutral approach to desegregation in the Wake County schools. In Borger, J. C. & Orfield, G. (Eds.), School Segregation: Must the south turn back? (pp. 261–280). Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Genishi, C. & Dyson, A. H. (2009). Children, Language, and Literacy: Diverse learners in diverse times. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Goldin., C. & Katz, L. (2009). The Race between Technology and Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the Price: College costs, financial aid, and the betrayal of the American dream. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Goldthorpe, J. H. (2000). On Sociology: Numbers, narratives, and the integration of research and theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grodsky, E. & Jones, M. T. (2007). Real and imagined barriers to college entry: Perceptions of cost. Social Science Research, 36, 745–766.Google Scholar
Heckman, J. (2006). Skill formation and the economics of investing in disadvantaged children. Science, 312, 1900–1902.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hout, M. (2006). Maximally maintained inequality and essentially maintained inequality. Sociological Theory and Methods, 21, 237–252.Google Scholar
Hout, M. (2012). Social and economic returns to college education in the United States. Annual Review of Sociology, 38, 379–400.Google Scholar
Hoxby, C. (2004). College Choices: The economics of where to go, when to go, and how to pay for it. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, M. (Ed.). (2013). Determined to Succeed? Performance, choice and education. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, M., Erikson, R., Goldthorpe, J. H., & Yaish, M. (2007). Primary and secondary effects in class differentials in educational attainment: The transition to A-level courses in England and Wales. Acta Sociologica, 50, 211–229.Google Scholar
Johnson, M. K., Crosnoe, R., & Elder, G. H. (2001). Students’ attachment and academic engagement: The role of race and ethnicity. Sociology of Education, 74, 318–340.Google Scholar
Kahlenberg, R. (2001). All Together Now: Creating middle class schools through public choice. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Kane, T. (2004). College-going and inequality. In Neckerman, K. (Ed.) Social Inequality (pp. 319–354). New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Kao, G. & Thompson, J. (2003). Race and ethnic stratification in educational achievement and attainment. Annual Review of Sociology, 29, 417–442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal Childhoods: Class, race, and family life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lee, V. E., Smerdon, B. A., Alfeld-Liro, C., & Brown, S. L. (2000). Inside large and small high schools: Curriculum and social relations. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 22, 147–171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, S. (2003). Cohort and life course patterns in the relationship between education and health: A hierarchical perspective. Demography, 40, 309–332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ma, J., Pender, M., & Welch, M. (2016). Education Pays 2016: The benefits of higher education for individuals and society. Washington, DC: College Board.Google Scholar
Mayer, S. E. (1997). What Money Can’t Buy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McLanahan, S. (2004). Children and the second demographic transition. Demography, 41, 607–628.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mercer, A. (2003). Socioeconomic balance: School board to consider the issue that divided community a decade ago. LaCrosse Tribune. January 19, 2003.Google Scholar
Mickelson, R. A. (2001). Subverting Swann: First- and second-generation segregation in teh Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools. American Education Research Journal, 38, 215–252.Google Scholar
Morgan, S. L. (2001). Counterfactuals, causal effect heterogeneity, and the Catholic school effect on learning. Sociology of Education, 74, 341–374.Google Scholar
Morgan, S. L. (2005). On the Edge of Commitment: Educational attainment and race in the United States. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, S. L., Spiller, M. W., & Todd, J. J. (2013). Class origins, high school graduation, and college entry in the United States. In Jackson, M. (Eds.), Determined to Succeed? Performance versus choice in educational attainment (pp. 279–305). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
National Center for Education Statistics. (2015). Digest of Education Statistics: Enrollment and percentage distribution of enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools, by race/ethnicity and region: Selected years, fall 1995 through fall 2026. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_203.50.aspGoogle Scholar
National Center for Education Statistics. (2017). Digest of Education Statistics: Percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in degree-granting postsecondary institutions, by level of institution and sex and race/ethnicity of student: 1970 through 2015. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_302.60.aspGoogle Scholar
National Research Council. (2011). Successful K-12 STEM Education: Identifying effective approaches in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.Google Scholar
Oakes, J. (2005). Keeping Track: How schools structure inequality (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Paunesku, D., Walton, G. M., Romero, C., Smith, E. N., Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2015). Mind-set interventions are a scalable treatment for academic underachievement. Psychological Science, 26, 784–793.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Plank, S. (2000). Finding One’s Place: Teaching styles and peer relations in diverse classrooms. New York: Teachers College Press.Google Scholar
Pomerantz, E. M., Moorman, E. A., & Litwack, S. D. (2007). The how, whom, and why of parents’ involvement in children’s academic lives: More is not always better. Review of Educational Research, 77(3), 373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, A. G., Farrar, E., & Cohen, D. K. (1985). The Shopping Mall High School: Winners and losers in the educational marketplace. Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin.Google Scholar
Raver, C. C., Gershoff, E., & Aber, L. (2007). Testing equivalence of mediating models of income, parenting, and school readiness for White, Black, and Hispanic children in a national sample. Child Development, 78, 96–115.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reardon, S. F. (2011). The widening academic achievement gap between the rich and the poor: New evidence and possible explanations. In Duncan, G. J. & Murnane, R. (Eds.), Whither Opportunity? Rising inequality, schools, and children’s life chances (pp. 91–116). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Reardon, S. F. & Owens, A. (2014). 60 years after Brown: Trends and consequences of school segregation. Annual Review of Sociology, 40, 199–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reardon, S. F., Yun, J. T., & Eitle, T. M. (2001). The changing structure of school segregation: Measurement and evidence of multiracial metropolitan-area school segregation, 1989–1995. Demography, 37, 351–364.Google Scholar
Rimm-Kaufman, S. E. & Pianta, R. C. (2000). An ecological perspective on the transition to kindergarten: A theoretical framework to guide empirical research. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 21, 491–511.Google Scholar
Robinson, K. & Harris, A. L. (2014). The Broken Compass: Parental involvement with children’s education. New York: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenbaum, J. (2001). Beyond College for All: Career paths for the forgotten half. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Rothstein, R. (2004). Class and Schools: Using social, economic, and educational reform to close the Black-White achievement gap. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.Google Scholar
Rumberger, R. W. & Palardy, G. J. (2005). Does segregation still matter? The impact of social composition on academic achievement in high school. Teachers College Record, 107, 1999–2045.Google Scholar
Schneider, B. (2007). Forming a College-Going Community in US Schools. Seattle, WA: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.Google Scholar
Schwartz, C. R. & Mare, R. D. (2005). Trends in educational assortative marriage from 1940 to 2003. Demography, 42, 621–646.Google Scholar
Sui-Chu, E. H. & Willms, J. D. (1996). Effects of parental involvement on eighth-grade achievement. Sociology of Education, 69, 126–141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Takanishi, R. & Le Menestrel, S. (2017). Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English: Promising futures. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, P., Parker, K., Fry, R., Cohn, D., Wang, W., Velasco, G., & Dockterman, D. (2011). Is College Worth It? Washington, DC: Pew Research Center.Google Scholar
Tobin, J., Adair, J. K., & Arzubiaga, A. (2013). Children Crossing Borders: Immigrant parent and teacher perspectives on preschool for children of immigrants. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Tyson, K. (2011). Integration Interrupted: Tracking, Black students, and acting White after Brown. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
US Census Bureau. (2017). Gini Indexes for Households, by Race and Hispanic Origin of Householder: 1967 to 2016. Washington, DC: Author.Google Scholar
Washbrook, E., Waldfogel, J., Bradbury, B., Corak, M., & Ghanghro, A. A. (2012). The development of young children of immigrants in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Child Development, 83, 1591–1607.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weinstein, R. (2002). Reaching Higher: The power of expectations in schooling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeager, D. S., Dahl, R. E., & Dweck, C. S. (2018). Why interventions to influence adolescent behavior often fail but could succeed. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13, 101–122.Google Scholar
Yeager, D. S. & Dweck, C. S. (2012). Mindsets that promote resilience: When students believe that personal characteristics can be developed. Educational Psychologist, 47, 302–314.Google Scholar
Yeager, D. S., Hanselman, P., Walton, G., Crosnoe, R., Muller, C., ... Dweck, C. (forthcoming). A focus on heterogeneity reveals where a brief, scalable psychological intervention improves adolescents’ educational trajectories and where it does not.Google Scholar
Yeager, D. S., Romero, C., Paunesku, D., Hulleman, C. S., Schneider, B., Hinojosa, C., Yeon, H., O’Brien, J., Flint, K., Roberts, A., Trott, J., Greene, D., Walton, G., & Dweck, C. (2016). Using design thinking to improve psychological interventions: The case of the growth mindset during the transition to high school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108, 374–391.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yeager, D. S. & Walton, G. M. (2011). Social-psychological interventions in education: They’re not magic. Review of Educational Research, 81, 267–301.Google Scholar
Zigler, E., Gilliam, W. S., & Jones, S. M. (2006). A Vision for Universal Preschool Education. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×