Research

Published Research

The Skin Color Paradox and the American Racial Order

Authors: Jennifer Hochschild, Vesla Weaver

Dark-skinned blacks in the United States have lower socioeconomic status, more punitive relationships with the criminal justice system, diminished prestige, and less likelihood of holding elective office compared with their lighter counterparts. This phenomenon of “colorism” both occurs within the African American community and is expressed by outsiders, and most blacks are aware of it. 

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Published Research

Frontlash: Race and the Development of Punitive Crime Policy

Authors: Vesla M. Weaver

Civil rights cemented its place on the national agenda with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, fair housing legislation, federal enforcement of school integration, and the outlawing of discriminatory voting mechanisms in the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Less recognized but no less important, the Second Reconstruction also witnessed one of the most punitive interventions in United States history. 

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Published Research

Cohort Crowding: How Resources Affect Collegiate Attainment

Authors: Sarah Turner, John Bound

Analyses of college attainment typically focus on factors affecting enrollment demand, including the financial attractiveness of a college education and the availability of financial aid, while implicitly assuming that resources available per student on the supply side of the market are elastically supplied. The higher education market in the United States is dominated by public and non-profit production, and colleges and universities receive considerable subsidies from state, federal, and private sources.

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Published Research

Teachers and the Gender Gaps in Student Achievement

Authors: Thomas Dee

A prominent class of explanations for the gender gaps in student outcomes focuses on the interactions between students and teachers. In this study, I examine whether assignment to a same-gender teacher influences student achievement, teacher perceptions of student performance, and student engagement.

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Published Research

Bottom-Up Federalism: The Diffusion of Antismoking Policies from U.S. Cities to States

Authors: Craig Volden, Charles R. Shipan

Studies of policy diffusion often focus on the horizontal spread of enactments from one state to another, paying little or no attention to the effects of local laws on state-level adoptions. For example, scholars have not tested whether local policy adoptions make state action more likely (through a snowball effect) or less likely (through a pressure valve effect).

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Published Research

Race, Income and College in 25 Years: Evaluating Justice O'Connor's Conjecture

Authors: Sarah Turner, Alan Krueger, Jesse Rothstein

The rate at which racial gaps in pre-collegiate academic achievement can plausibly be expected to erode is a matter of great interest and much uncertainty. In her opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, Supreme Court Justice O’Connor took a firm stand: “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary …”

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Published Research

Opportunities for Low Income Students at Top Colleges and Universities: Policy Initiatives and the Distribution of Students

Authors: Sarah Turner, Amanada Pallais

Whether the nation’s most selective and resource-intensive colleges and universities serve as “engines of opportunity” rather than “bastions of privilege” depends on the extent to which they increase the educational attainment of students from the most economically disadvantaged backgrounds (Bowen, Kurzweil, and Tobin, 2005). Less than 11 percent of first-year students matriculating at 20 highly-selective institutions are from the bottom quartile of the income distribution, leading to significant concerns from higher education leaders and policy makers about the role of higher education in promoting intergenerational mobility. 

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Published Research

Complex by Design. Investigating Pathways Into Teaching in New York City Schools

Authors: James H. Wyckoff, Donald J. Boyd, Pam Grossman, Hamilton Lankford, Susanna Loeb, Nicholas M. Michelli

New York City represents a microcosm of the changes that are shaking the very foundations of teacher education in this country. In their efforts to find teachers for hard-to-staff schools by creating multiple pathways into teaching, districts from New York City to Los Angeles are in the midst of what amounts to a national experiment in how best to recruit, prepare, and retain teachers. 

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Published Research

States as Policy Laboratories: Emulating Success in the Children’s Health Insurance Program

Authors: Craig Volden

This article illustrates the use of the directed dyad-year event history analysis to study policy diffusion, with an application to policy changes in the Children’s Health Insurance Program from 1998 to 2001. This analysis reveals strong evidence that states with successful policies are more likely to be emulated than are those with failing policies.

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Published Research

How Changes in Entry Requirements Alter the Teacher Workforce and Affect Student Achievement

Authors: James H. Wyckoff, Donald Boyd, Pamela Grossman, Hamilton Lankford, Susanna Loeb

We are in the midst of what amounts to a national experiment in how best to attract, prepare, and retain teachers, particularly for high poverty urban schools. Using data on students and teachers in grades three through eight, this study assesses the effects of pathways into teaching in New York City on the teacher workforce and on student achievement.

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