Race, SES, and Sense of School Belonging: A Multilevel Analysis of Racial Disparities in Academic Achievement
Event Type
Research Presentation
Academic Department
Psychology
Location
Dana Science Building, 2nd floor
Start Date
24-4-2026 1:00 PM
End Date
24-4-2026 2:30 PM
Description
"Achievement Gap" has been a highly discussed topic in U.S. socio-political debate as well as in education policy and research. The racial disparity in educational outcomes has primarily been studied with a deficit-based framework that blames the individual instead of the systemic and structural factors that produce them (Shukla et al., 2022; Strunk, 2024). Grounded in Critical Race Theory informed framework, the present study examines the racial disparity in academic achievement and sense of school belonging among U.S. secondary school students. The current study analyzes the U.S. 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment dataset to examine how mathematics, reading and science scores as well as sense of school belonging vary across different racial groups in the United States. The study analyzed the U.S. sample consisting of 4819 students across 164 schools using two-level (school and student) multilevel regression models and found that Socioeconomic Status (SES) was a strong predictor of achievement across all subjects and however the racial disparities remained despite significantly improving the model fit. On the other hand, sense of school belonging had a weak association with achievement and did not significantly improve model fit for all three subjects. While this study uses a nationally representative sample and a multilevel modeling approach to estimate within-school and between-school variation in achievement, the cross-sectional design limits the study in making causal inferences on how school belonging and SES shapes achievement over time.
Race, SES, and Sense of School Belonging: A Multilevel Analysis of Racial Disparities in Academic Achievement
Dana Science Building, 2nd floor
"Achievement Gap" has been a highly discussed topic in U.S. socio-political debate as well as in education policy and research. The racial disparity in educational outcomes has primarily been studied with a deficit-based framework that blames the individual instead of the systemic and structural factors that produce them (Shukla et al., 2022; Strunk, 2024). Grounded in Critical Race Theory informed framework, the present study examines the racial disparity in academic achievement and sense of school belonging among U.S. secondary school students. The current study analyzes the U.S. 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment dataset to examine how mathematics, reading and science scores as well as sense of school belonging vary across different racial groups in the United States. The study analyzed the U.S. sample consisting of 4819 students across 164 schools using two-level (school and student) multilevel regression models and found that Socioeconomic Status (SES) was a strong predictor of achievement across all subjects and however the racial disparities remained despite significantly improving the model fit. On the other hand, sense of school belonging had a weak association with achievement and did not significantly improve model fit for all three subjects. While this study uses a nationally representative sample and a multilevel modeling approach to estimate within-school and between-school variation in achievement, the cross-sectional design limits the study in making causal inferences on how school belonging and SES shapes achievement over time.
Comments
Under the direction of Dr. Alex Wooten.