Reviews previous literature to investigate why the achievement gap continues despite desegregation efforts.
Current Selections
ClearAn Organizational Perspective on the Origins of Instructional Segregation: School Composition and Use of Within-Class Ability Grouping in American Kindergartens
Investigate the degree to which racial and ethnic composition of schools is associated with use of ability grouping practices as early as kindergarten.
Teacher Credentials and Student Achievement in High School. A Cross-Subject Analysis with Student Fixed Effects
Examining the relationship between teacher credentials and student achievement in high schools, especially in the core courses taken early in a student’s high school career.
International Evidence on Ability Grouping with Curriculum Differentiation and the Achievement Gap in Secondary Schools
Review what research from other developed countries says regarding: ability grouping and achievement, achievement gap, etc.
Legal Rights, Local Wrongs: When Community Control Collides with Educational Equity
Explores the normative and political difficulties experienced by racially diverse schools that are implementing detracking reform.
Ability Grouping Practices in Elementary School and African American/Hispanic Achievement
Examines the impact of ability grouping practices on the achievement gains among African Americans and Hispanics during elementary school.
School Composition Effects in Denmark: Quantile Regression Evidence from PISA 2000
Estimate the effect of the socioeconomic mix of the schools on students’ test scores.
Does Educational Tracking Affect Performance and Inequality? Differences-in-Differences Evidence Across Countries
Estimate the tracking effects in the differences in outcomes between primary and secondary school across tracked and non-tracked systems in the world.
The Effects of Group Composition on Achievement, Interaction, and Learning Efficiency During Computer-Based Cooperative Instruction
Effects of cooperative group composition, student ability, and learning accountability on achievement, interaction, and instructional efficiency.
Migration Background, Minority-Group Membership and Academic Achievement: Research Evidence from Social, Educational, and Developmental Psychology
Explores the impact on achievement of grouping students both within and between classrooms and schools based on their ability.
Examining Gaps in Mathematics Achievement Among Racial-Ethnic Groups, 1972-1992
Empirically examine several family-and school-based explanations for black-white and Latino-white test score differences over the past 20 years.
Within-School Segregation in an Urban School District
Examine patterns in and evaluate the severity of within-school segregation across ethnic groups, grades, boroughs, and years.
Addressing Institutional Inequities in Education: The Case of Advanced Placement Courses in California
Evaluate equality of opportunities that students of different races/ethnicities/social classes & communities have to participate in AP courses in CA.
Elementary School Teachers' Perceptions and Attitudes to the Educational Structure of Tracking
Explores teachers’ attitudes and perceptions about tracking in three NY State public schools.
Math Acceleration for All
Discusses math acceleration and heterogeneous grouping. Summarizes study of a middle school program that eliminated math tracking.
Tracking Trounces Test Scores
Benefits of de-tracking in U. S. high schools.
Closing the Black-White Achievement Gap: Instructional Strategies in Title I Schools
Studies the connection between student achievement in reading & the Black-White achievement gap, emphasizing different instructional strategies.
Tracking by Accident and by Design
Tracking in Japan, Germany and the US.
Tracking and Mixed-Ability Grouping in Secondary School Mathematics Classrooms: A Case Study
Trying to test if tracking produces systematic differences in provision of students.
Short Circuits or Superconductors? Effects of Group Composition on High-Achieving Students' Science Assessment Performance
Analyze the group processes intensely in order to understand the impact of group composition on group functioning & the scores of high-ability student
Tell Me With Whom You're Learning and I'll Tell You How Much You've Learned: Mixed-Ability Versus Same-Ability Grouping in Mathematics
The effects of teaching mathematics in a mixed-ability setting on student’s achievements and teachers’ attitudes.
The Tracking and Ability Grouping Debate
What have we actually learned about tracking and ability grouping?
Equity Issues in Collaborative Group Assessment: Group Composition and Performance
Investigated the effects of group ability composition on group processes and outcomes in science performance assessments.
Detracking: The Social Construction of Ability, Cultural Politics, and Resistance to Reform
Explores how conceptions of intelligence intervene in efforts to detrack schools.
High School Seniors' Instructional Experiences in Science and Math
To what extent are high school seniors’ instructional experiences affected by their social backgrounds and by the schools they attend?
An Organizational Analysis of the Effects of Ability Grouping
Examines variation in the quality and effects of instructional discourse across ability groups.
Individual and Organizational Predictors of High School Track Placement
What is the importance of school characteristics in the determination of track placement?
All Children Can Learn- The Unmet Promise: A Study of Ability Grouping and Tracking in North Carolina Schools
Analyzes instructional grouping practices in NC.
Two Cities' Tracking and Within-School Segregation
Examined how grouping practices can create within-school segregation that discriminates against Black and Latino students.
The Promise of Brown and the Reality of Academic Groups: The Tracks of My Tears
Examines the antecedents of academic tracking and ability grouping in America and reviews the justification for these concepts in public schools.
Alternative Uses of Ability Grouping in Secondary Schools: Can We Bring High-Quality Instruction to Low-Ability Classes?
Explores possible instances of high-quality instruction in low-ability classes.
The Organization of Students for Instruction in the Middle School
The structure of tracking systems and the process of assigning students to tracks for instruction at a critical point in schooling, the middle school.
Middle School Ability Grouping and Student Achievement in Science and Mathematics
Effects of middle school ability grouping on cognitive achievements in mathematics and science.
The Social Consequences of Growing Up in a Poor Neighborhood
Determine how much effect the social composition of a neighborhood or school has on children’s life chances.
Ability Grouping and Sex Differences in Mathematics Achievement
Investigate the effects of ability grouping and sex differences on the mathematics achievement of elementary school students.
Opportunities and Constraints: Black-White Differences in the Formation of Interracial Friendships
Studies the effects of classroom climate, instructional organization, and classroom racial composition on cross-race friendliness
Ability Grouping and its Alternatives: Must We Track?
What is the evidence about the achievement effects of ability grouping? What are the alternatives?
Instructional Grouping in the Classroom
Some types of instructional grouping that contribute to more positive academic and affective outcomes for students.
Cross-Group Contact Opportunities: Impact on Interpersonal Relationships in Desegregated Middle Schools
Examines the effects of school organizational structure on students’ interracial and cross-sex communication patterns
Classroom Intellectual Composition and Academic Achievement
Test if the intellectual level of the classroom affects the quality of learning environments.
Tracking and Ability Grouping in American Schools: Some Constitutional Questions
Examine from a constitutional perspective the bases on which ability grouping and tracking might be challenged as barriers to equal educational opp.
School Racial Composition and College Attendance Revisited
Direct effects of school racial composition on college attendance when introducing curriculum and grades and relocating the test scores.