Trending Topic Research File
Opportunity gaps demonstrating differences in academic performance between students of different genders, races, and income levels are prevalent in school districts across the country, and researchers continue examining strategies to ensure that all students are receiving quality education and producing proficient educational outcomes.
The following compendium of open-access articles are inclusive of all substantive 91涩漫 journal content regarding opportunity gaps published since 2013. This page will be updated as new articles are published.
Note: Articles are listed below in reverse chronological order of publication.
Rebecca A. Cruz, Catherin M. Kramarczuk Voulgarides, Allison R. Firestone, Logan McDermott, Zhihui Feng Review of Educational Research, December 2023 Researchers found that studies using medical/rehabilitative frameworks to define disability tended to offer policy recommendations focused on preventing inappropriate identification and enhancing access to early interventions. In contrast, studies situated in social models of dis-ability tended to offer policy recommendations for holistic improvement of educational systems.
Douglas B. Downey Review of Educational Research, December 2023 This article considers the logic behind seasonal research, the empirical patterns it has produced, and the kinds of new questions it motivates.
Elizabeth Buckner, Yara Abdelaziz Educational Researcher, August 2023 Researchers found large wealth-based inequalities in higher education attendance cross-nationally, which are: substantially larger than inequalities in secondary completion, larger in low- and middle-income countries than high-income countries, and negatively associated with national wealth.
Hayley Weddle, Marie Lockton, Amanda Datnow Educational Researcher, August 2023 Researchers found key coaching strategies to promote teacher team capacity building, including fostering student-centered discussion and collaborative relationships, tailoring capacity-building opportunities to provide access for all teachers, and negotiating across teachers and leaders to support improvement efforts.
Kaitlin P. Anderson Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, August 2023 Researchers found a relationship between implicit racial bias and disparate AP participation for Black students relative to White students, and suggestive evidence of a relationship between explicit racial bias and disparate dual enrollment participation between Black and White students.
Jon Valant, Jane Arnold Lincove Educational Researcher, August 2023 Researchers found that car access is strongly associated with school requests and placements even after accounting for neighborhood characteristics and consider car access as a pathway by which wealth disparities produce educational disparities in settings that emphasize school choice.
Nicholas D. E. Mark, Sean P. Corcoran, Jennifer L. Jennings Educational Researcher, July 2023 Researchers found that Black and Hispanic students and those in high-poverty neighborhoods attend high school with a much smaller fraction of their middle school or neighborhood peers than their White, Asian, and low-poverty neighborhood counterparts.
Rajeev Darolia, Andrew Sullivan Educational Researcher, May 2023 Researchers found that different commonly used procedures to measure which students are considered homeless can yield markedly different estimates of high school graduation rates for these students.
Ariel Kalil, Samantha Steimle, Rebecca M. Ryan 91涩漫 Open, April 2023 This paper examines changes from 1996–2019 in U.S. parents’ time investment at their children’s schools using data from the National Household Education Survey
Aaron Leo Educational Researcher, February 2023 Drawing on lessons gleaned from ethnographic research, which has demonstrated the importance of social-class analyses, this essay calls for a greater emphasis on and recognition of class in culturally responsive and sustaining educational (CRSE) methods and application.
Astrid Marie Jorde Sands酶r, Henrik Daae Zachrisson, Lynn A. Karoly, Eric Dearing Educational Researcher, January 2023 Researchers found that achievement gaps by parental income, but not by parental education, increased over the time period, underscoring the different ways these two socioeconomic status components relate to achievement and the potential for policy to alter gaps.
Kaylee T. Matheny, Marissa E. Thompson, Carrie Townley-Flores, Sean F. Reardon American Educational Research Journal, January 2023 Researchers found that average test score disparities between nonpoor and poor students and between White and Black students are growing; those between White and Hispanic students are shrinking.
David M. Quinn, Tara-Marie Desruisseaux Educational Researcher, August 2022 Researchers found that the effect of achievement gap (AG) language on equity prioritization is moderated by implicit bias, with larger negative effects among teachers holding stronger anti-Black/pro-White stereotypes; the negative effect of AG language replicates with non-teachers; and AG language causes respondents to express more negative racial stereotypes.
Megan Kuhfeld, James Soland, Karyn Lewis Educational Researcher, June 2022 Researchers observed declines due to COVID-19 were more substantial than during other recent school disruptions, such as those due to natural disasters.
Sarah A. Cordes, Christopher Rick, Amy Ellen Schwartz Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, May 2022 Researchers found that long bus rides are uncommon and that those with long bus rides are disproportionately Black and more likely to attend charter or district choice schools. They found deleterious effects of long bus rides on attendance and chronic absenteeism of district choice students.
Walter A. Herring, Daphna Bassok, Anita S. McGinty, Luke C. Miller, James H. Wyckoff Educational Researcher, April 2022 Researchers found significant racial and socioeconomic differences in the likelihood that a child will be proficient on their third-grade reading assessment.
Eric Isenberg, Jeffrey Max, Philip Gleason, Jonah Deutsch Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, September 2021 Researchers found that differences between the average value added of teachers of high- and low-income students are 0.005 standard deviations in English/language arts and 0.004 standard deviations in math. Differences between teachers of Black, Hispanic, and White students are also small.
Angela Johnson, Megan Kuhfeld, James Soland 91涩漫 Open, October 2021 Researchers provided novel evidence on how achievement and growth patterns differ between rural and nonrural schools and additional evidence that Black–White achievement gaps widen during the school year in both rural and nonrural schools.
Scott Latham, Sean P. Corcoran, Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, Jennifer L. Jennings Educational Researcher, July 2021 Researchers found the average quality of public pre-K providers is high. However, they identified large disparities in the average quality of providers experienced by Black and White students, which is partially explained by differential proximity to higher quality providers.
Drew H. Bailey, Greg J. Duncan, Richard J. Murnane, Natalie Au Yeung Educational Researcher, April 2021 Relative to a pre-COVID achievement gap of 1.00 SD, respondents’ median forecasts for the jump in the achievement gaps in elementary school by spring 2021 were large–a change from 1.00 to 1.30 and 1.25 SD for math and reading achievement.
Lorraine Blatt, Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal American Educational Research Journal, April 2021 Researchers found that higher charter school enrollment is associated with larger White-Black test score gaps and this effect is mediated by White-Black segregation. There is also evidence that magnet school enrollment is associated with White-Hispanic test score gaps.
Andrew J. Hill, Daniel B. Jones Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, April 2021 Researchers found that performance pay increases the conditional Black–White gap.
Nabeel Gillani, Eric Chu, Doug Beeferman, Rebecca Eynon, Deb Roy 91涩漫 Open, March 2021 Researchers found that parents who reference school reviews may be accessing, and making decisions based on, biased perspectives that reinforce achievement gaps.
J. Marc Goodrich, Lauren Thayer, Sergio Leiva Educational Researcher, March 2021 Researchers found that there were substantial achievement gaps that were narrowing over time at the state level but that there were no achievement gaps between monolingual and multilingual students in large school districts.
Bradley D. Marianno Educational Researcher, March 2021 Researchers found that achievement gaps in California are smaller where contracts increase in restrictiveness in class size and larger where contracts increase in restrictiveness in teacher evaluation and leave policies over time, though this is not the case for all student subgroups.
Lucrecia Santiba帽ez, Cassandra M. Guarino Educational Researcher, February 2021 Researchers found that student outcomes generally suffer more from absenteeism in mathematics than in ELA.
Megan Kuhfeld, Dennis J. Condron, Doug B. Downey Educational Researcher, December 2020. Researchers found that Black-White achievement gaps widen during school periods and shrink during summers. Asian students generally pull ahead of White students at a faster rate during summers.
Heather E. Price American Educational Research Journal, November 2020. Researchers found that leaks in the college preparatory pipeline divert out historically marginalized students.
Mark J. Chin, David M. Quinn, Tasminda K. Dhaliwal, Virginia S. Lovison Educational Researcher, July 2020.Researchers found that teachers’ implicit White/Black biases (as measured by the implicit association test) vary by teacher gender and race.
Allison Atteberry, Andrew McEachin American Educational Research Journal, July 2020. Researchers found that while some students actually maintain their school-year learning rate, others lose nearly all their school-year progress.
David M. Quinn Educational Researcher, June 2020. Researchers found that a TV news story about racial achievement gaps (vs. a control or counterstereotypical video) led viewers to express more exaggerated stereotypes of Black Americans as lacking education and may have increased viewers’ implicit stereotyping of Black students as less competent than White students.
Megan Kuhfeld, James Soland, Christine Pitts, Margaret Burchinal Educational Researcher, June 2020. Researchers found that kindergarteners in 2017 had moderately lower math and reading skills than in 2010, but that inequalities at school entry by race/ethnicity and school poverty level decreased during that period.
Jaymes Pyne Educational Researcher, June 2020. This study found that equal engagement patterns could entirely reverse girls’ average leads over boys in fifth-grade reading test scores and could more than triple the gender gap in average math test scores currently favoring boys.
Brian Clark, Ying Shi 91涩漫 Open, April 2020. Researchers found that low-income White females graduate at rates 5 to 6 percentage points lower than Black peers despite having higher test scores.
Jordan G. Starck, Travis Riddle, Stacey Sinclair, Natasha Warikoo Educational Researcher, April 2020 Researchers found that both teachers and nonteachers hold pro-White explicit and implicit racial biases.
Jillian Ives, Milagros Castillo-Montoya Review of Educational Research, January 2020 Researchers found a smaller body of literature that conceptualized first-generation college students as learners whose lived experiences, when connected to academic content, can contribute to their academic learning, advancement of disciplines, self-growth, and community development.
Brendan Bartanen Educational Researcher, January 2020 Researchers found that principal effects on student absences are comparable in magnitude to effects on student achievement. Moving from the 25th to 75th percentile in principal value-added decreases student absences by 1.4 instructional days and lowers the probability of chronic absenteeism by 4 percentage points.
Kenneth Shores, Ha Eun Kim, Mela Still American Educational Research Journal, January 2020. Researchers found that gaps in disciplinary action, grade-level retention, classification into special education and Gifted and Talented, and Advanced Placement course-taking are large in magnitude and correlated.
J. Jacob Kirksey, Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, Michael A. Gottfried, Jennifer Freeman, Christopher S. Ozuna 91涩漫 Open, January 2020. Researchers found that in the years when districts had more deportations occurring within 25 miles, White-Latino/a gaps were larger in math achievement and rates of chronic absenteeism.
Francis A. Pearman, II, F. Chris Curran, Benjamin Fisher, Joseph Gardella 91涩漫 Open, October 2019. Researchers found that districts with larger racial discipline gaps have larger racial achievement gaps (and vice versa).
Sung won Kim, Hyunsun Cho, Lois Y. Kim Review of Educational Research, September 2019. Researchers found an overall weak relation between socioeconomic status and academic outcomes.
Geoffrey B. Saxe, Joshua Sussman Educational Researcher, September 2019. Researchers found that English language learners in Learning Mathematics Through Representations classrooms showed greater gains than comparison English language learners and gained at similar rates to their English proficient peers in Learning Mathematics Through Representations classrooms.
Heewon Jang, Sean F. Reardon 91涩漫 Open, September 2019. Researchers found that socioeconomic gradients and their growth rates vary considerably among states, and that between-district income segregation is positively associated with the socioeconomic achievement gradient.
Hanna Dumont, Douglas D. Ready American Educational Research Journal, August 2019. Researchers found that seasonal comparative scholars, who generally argue that schools play an equalizing role, and scholars focused on school compositional effects, who typically report that schools exacerbate inequality, come to these contrasting findings not only because they ask different questions but also because they treat student initial achievement differently when modeling student learning.
David M. Quinn, Tara-Marie Desruisseaux, Akua Nkansah-Amankra Educational Researcher, July 2019. Researchers found that the phrase “racial achievement gap” elicits lower levels of issue prioritization than the phrase “racial inequality in educational outcomes” due to the latter’s connotations of social justice.
F. Chris Curran, James Kitchin 91涩漫 Open, July 2019. Researchers found suggestive evidence that time on science instruction is related to science achievement but little evidence that the number of science topics/skills covered is related to greater science achievement.
Mesmin Destin, Paul Hanselman, Jenny Buontempo, Elizabeth Tipton, David S. Yeager 91涩漫 Open, July 2019. Researchers found that higher socioeconomic status was associated with fewer fixed beliefs about academic ability and that there was a negative association between a fixed mindset and grades that was similar regardless of a student’s socioeconomic status.
Sean F. Reardon, Erin M. Fahle, Demetra Kalogrides, Anne Podolsky, Rosal铆a C. Z谩rate American Educational Research Journal, April 2019. Researchers found that the average U.S. school district has no gender achievement gap in math, but that there is a gap of roughly 0.23 standard deviations in English language arts that favors girls.
Catherine Riegle-Crumb, Barbara King, Yasmiyn Irizarry Educational Researcher, February 2019. Results of the study reveal evidence of persistent racial/ethnic inequality in STEM degree attainment not found in other fields.
Kevin C. Bastian, Sarah C. Fuller 91涩漫 Open, November 2018. Researchers found that urban high schools were likely to start very early or late. Later start times were associated with positive student engagement outcomes (reduced suspensions, higher course grades), especially for disadvantaged students.
David J. Armor, Gary N. Marks, Aron Malatinszky Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, July 2018. Researchers found that large school SES effects often found in cross-sectional studies are artifacts of aggregation and are not a sound basis for SES-based school integration policies.
Lisa M. Yarnell, George W. Bohrnstedt American Educational Research Journal, October 2017. Researchers found that a match of Black male students with Black teachers is associated with higher reading scores for this group, as is a match of Black female students with a Black or Hispanic teacher.
Jennifer A. Heissel, Dorainne J. Levy, Emma K. Adam 91涩漫 Open, June 2017. Researchers found that stress, sleep, and cortisol vary by race-ethnicity and socioeconomic status, and as a result, they may serve as potential pathways contributing to racial-ethnic and socioeconomic achievement gaps.
Sean F. Reardon, Demetra Kalogrides, Erin M. Fahle Educational Researcher, September 2018. Researchers found that estimated gaps are strongly associated with the proportions of the test scores based on multiple-choice and constructed-response questions on state accountability tests.
Rachel Valentino American Educational Research Journal, September 2017. The researcher found large "quality gaps" in public pre-K between poor, minority students and non-poor, non-minority students.
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, March 2017. Researchers found that children being randomly assigned to the designated program plus laptop condition caused them to experience significantly higher reported levels of summer home mathematics engagement relative to their peers in the control group.
Katherine Michelmore, Susan Dynarski 91涩漫 Open, February 2017. Researchers find that half of eigth graders in Michigan are eligible for a subsidized meal, but just 14 percent have been eligible for subsidized meal in every grade since kindergarten.
Daphna Bassok, Scott Latham Educational Researcher, January 2017. Researchers document how students entering Kindergarten in 2010 compare to those who entered in 1998 in terms of their teacher-reported math, literacy, and behavioral skills.
David M. Quinn, North Cooc, Joe McIntyre, Celia J. Gomez Educational Researcher, November 2016. Researchers analyzed seasonal trends in socioeconomic status (SES) and racial/ethnic test score gaps using nationally representative data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (ECLS-K:2011).
Ruth Berkowitz, Hadass Moore, Ron Avi Astor Review of Educational Research, November 2016. Researchers examined whether a positive climate can successfully disupt the associations between low socioeconomic states (SES) and poor academic achievement.
Joseph R. Cimpian, Sarah T. Lubienski, Jennifer D. Timmer, Martha Makowski, Emily Miller 91涩漫 Open, October 2016. Researchers revealed gender gaps in mathematics achievement and teacher perceptions.
Jon Valant, Daniel A. Newark Educational Researcher, August 2016. Researchers explored the public's beliefs about test score gaps and its support for gap-closing initiatives.
Anna K. Chmielewski, Sean F. Reardon 91涩漫 Open, June 2016. Researchers found considerable variation across countries in income achievement gaps.
Jill L. Adelson, Emily R. Dickinson, Brittany C. Cunningham Educational Researcher, May 2016. Researchers examined the patterns of reading achievement using statewide data from all students (Grades 3-10) in multiple years to examine gaps based on student, school, and district characteristics.
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, March 2016. Researchers randomly assigned seventh-grade students within 11 schools to receive writing exercises designed to promote values affirmation. Impacts on cumulative grade point average for the district’s racial/ethnic minority students who may be subject to stereotype threat are consistent with but smaller than those from past smaller studies.
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, March 2016. The researcher found no evidence that an increased number of African American students negatively affects achievement growth.
Paul L. Morgan, George Farkas, Marianne M. Hillemeier, Steve Maczuga Educational Researcher, February 2016. Researchers examined the age of onset, over-time dynamics, and mechanisms underlying science achievement gaps in U.S. elementary and middle schools.
David M. Quinn, North Cooc Educational Researcher, August 2015. Researchers find that the Black-White science test score gap remains stable over the years students, the Hispanic-White gap narrows, and the Asian-White Grade 3 gap closes by Grade 8.
Sean F. Reardon, Andrew D. Ho Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, April 2015. Researchers obtain practical estimates of the imprecision imparted by the coarsening process and of the bias imparted by measurment error.
Timothy Arthur Drake Educational Researcher, October 2014. The researcher found that language minority achievement gaps are three to five tenths of a standard deviation in reading and math but that the effect is attenuated by increased levels of linguistic isolation.
Katherine O. Strunk, Andrew McEachin Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, September 2014. Researchers found that one intensive technical assistance (TA) intervention - California's District Assistance and Intervention Teams (DAITs) implemented in conjunction with a high-stakes accountability policy improves the math and English performance of traditionally underserved students.
Seth Gershenson American Educational Research Journal, December 2013. Researchers examined if differrential rates of summer learning loss contribute to the persistence of achievement gaps between students of different socioeconomic backgrounds.