Although there is an abundance of research on the association of school poverty (or socioeconomic status) and test score level, there is very little rigorous longitudinal evidence on the cumulative effects of exposure to differing school contexts. Drawing from methods used first in epidemiology and then in neighborhood effects research, we use…

Most U.S. students attend racially segregated schools. To understand this pattern, I employ a survey experiment with New York City families actively choosing schools and investigate whether they express racialized school preferences. I find school racial composition heterogeneously affects white, black, Latinx, and Asian parents' and students'…

Expanded school-choice policies have weakened the traditional link between residence and school assignment. These policies have created new school options and new labor for families to manage and divide. Drawing on interviews with 90 mothers and 12 fathers of elementary-age children, I demonstrate that mothers across class, racial, and ethnic…

Our study aims to understand trans students' perceptions of campus climate, with a particular focus on students' demographics, academic experiences, and cocurricular experiences. We use Bhabha's concept of "third space" as an epistemological lens and Rankin and Reason's "transformational tapestry" model as a theoretical…

Research shows that exposure to local neighborhood violence is associated with students' behavior and engagement in the classroom. Given the social nature of schooling, these symptoms not only affect individual students but have the potential to spill over and influence their classmates' learning, as well. In this study, I use detailed…

Our study investigates how changing socioeconomic status (SES) composition, measured as percentage free and reduced priced lunch (FRL), affects students' math achievement growth after the transition to middle school. Using the life course framework of cumulative advantage, we investigate how timing, individual FRL status, and legacy effects of a…

Although the physical arrangement of workspaces can both constrain and enable interactions among organizational members, sociological research in education has not extensively examined the role of physical proximity in determining work-related social ties among school staff. Using social network analysis, this article explores the relationship…

This article examines inequality in different dimensions of student academic achievement (math, science, and reading) by family background and school context in three East Asian (Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea) and three Western (United States, Germany, and the Czech Republic) nations. Building on Hauser (2009), we develop a novel…

This paper examines how public school teachers take up, modify, or resist the dominant ideology of color-blind racism. This examination is based on in-depth interviews with 60 teachers at three segregated schools: one was race/class privileged and two were disadvantaged. Inductive coding revealed that teachers at each school articulated a shared…

Elite universities are credited as launch points for the widest variety of meaningful careers. Yet, year after year at the most selective universities, nearly half the graduating seniors head to a surprisingly narrow band of professional options. Over the past few decades, this has largely been into the finance and consulting sectors, but…

Barbara Schneider is the John A. Hannah Chair and University Distinguished Professor in the College of Education and Department of Sociology at Michigan State University. Her research focuses on how the social contexts of schools and families influence the academic and social well being of adolescents as they move into adulthood. In this article…

In the half century since the 1966 Coleman Report, scholars have yet to develop a consensus regarding the relationship between schools and inequality. The Coleman Report suggested that schools play little role in generating achievement gaps, but social scientists have identified many ways in which schools provide better learning environments to…

Schools and neighborhoods are thought to be two of the most important contextual influences on student academic outcomes. Drawing on a unique data set that permits simultaneous estimation of neighborhood and school contributions to student test score gains, we analyze the distributions of these contributions to consider the relative importance of…

Studies of when youth classify academic achievement in racial terms have focused on the racial classification of behaviors and individuals. However, institutions--including schools--may also be racially classified. Drawing on a comparative interview study, we examine the school contexts that prompt urban black students to classify schools in…

Racially diverse schools are often presented as places where students can learn to challenge racist discourse and practice. Yet there are a variety of processes through which such schools reproduce the very hierarchies they are meant to dismantle. Drawing on 18 months of fieldwork in two racially diverse South African high schools, I add to the…