Studies have sought to understand the underrepresentation of women and racial/ethnic minority groups in STEM, but less attention has been paid to primary school students. Using data from a nationally-representative sample, this study identified factors influencing US third-grade children's self-perceived competencies in maths and science, while…

Research Findings: This study illustrated whether and how ecological environments are associated with language-minority students' (N = 12,500) math and reading development from kindergarten to the eighth grade. Results identified the robust effects of preschool type, kindergarten length, classroom activities, parent-child reading, parent…

Background: Socioeconomic gaps in children's academic and social skills are large upon Kindergarten entry (von Hippel, Workman, and Downey 2018; Reardon 2011; Reardon and Portilla 2016). Preschool programs may yield particularly large benefits to low-income students and racially minoritized groups and may be promising for reducing inequalities…

This study uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-1999 (ECLS-K), to examine the texts assigned to eighth-grade students. By comparing student demographic information from the ECLS-K with demographic information from the texts, we examine adjustment of assignments to match students' backgrounds. In…

Previous analyses of large national datasets have tended to report a negative relationship between parental homework help and student achievement. Yet these studies have not examined heterogeneity in this relationship based on the propensity for a parent to provide homework help. By using a propensity score-based approach, this study investigates…

Black and Hispanic students have lower achievement than White students due to segregation, discrimination, and poverty. If these disadvantages also lead to negative academic attitudes, Black and Hispanic students may disengage from school, compounding the effects of low achievement and limited opportunities. Therefore, my dissertation is organized…

K-12 gifted and talented programs have struggled with racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, native language, and disability inequity since their inception. This inequity has been well documented in public schools since at least the 1970s and has been stubbornly persistent despite receiving substantial attention at conferences, in scholarly journals, and…

The benefits of student-teacher ethnoracial matching on student outcomes--ranging from academic achievement to postsecondary attainment--are well documented. Yet, we know far less about the role of student-teacher ethnoracial matching in the earliest grades school and on less about effects on non-academic outcomes. The purpose of this study is to…

The conventional view is that the origin of the black-white student achievement gap can be traced to sociocultural and socioeconomic factors, plus variation in parental style and parental investment, and is maintained and perpetuated by variation in school and teacher quality. This article rejects the conventional view, drawing upon the results of…

"Pre-K Mathematics" is a supplemental mathematics program focusing on a range of mathematical concepts to help develop children's informal mathematical knowledge. The "Pre-K Mathematics" program includes teacher-led, small-group mathematics activities that are engaging and hands-on, as well as caregiver-child activities that…

This study uses data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, 2010-2011 to better understand the rates of grade retention during elementary school and the factors associated with this grade retention. Using matched student-teacher and student-principal data, I examine the student-, teacher-, and school-level factors associated with a student's…

The transition into kindergarten often serves as the basis for long-term disparities in educational attainment because initially small differences in early learning widen throughout the K-12 educational system. Given the long-standing disparities in their academic achievement related to being of low socioeconomic status and a racial/ethnic…

The purpose of this report is to describe basic descriptive statistics on barriers to parent-school involvement data that are available using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K:2011). The brief begins by examining the level of parents' involvement in activities in their children's schools and the specific…

"Math Expressions" is a curriculum for students in prekindergarten through sixth grade that aims to build students' conceptual understanding of mathematics and to develop fluency in mathematical problem solving and computation. The curriculum encourages student learning of mathematics through real-world situations, visual supports such…

When identifying parental socialization processes influencing children's reading achievement, building self-regulation is a potential underlying mechanism. Yet socialization (i.e., warmth, stress) of self-regulation may vary based on the sociocultural context of ethnic minority families. Using the ECLS-K: 2011 (N = 17,020; M[subscript Age] = 73.43…