Family/school inequality and African-American/Hispanic achievement

Analyses of educational achievement and racial gaps, in particular, have de monstrated the importance of family background and school attributes. Littl e of this work, however, incorporates a broad, multi-level, conceptual and analytic focus: one whereby disadvantages at, and potential linkages betwee n, family and school levels are considered simultaneously. In this paper, I offer a framework that views individuals and societal subgroups as simulta neously embedded in multiple institutional spheres that are potentially int erdependent. Such embedded and interdependency, I argue, are important for understanding the reproduction of group disadvantage, including that pertai ning to educational outcomes. Analyses of Black and Hispanic disadvantage i n achievement draw from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and its n ew school and principle component surveys. Baseline family disadvantages (1 986) explain a substantial portion of racial variation in math/reading comp rehension (1994), while changes in family income and parental education ove r a five year period (1986-1990) yield notable consequences as well. These effects are strong and direct at the early elementary levels, and partially mediated through earlier patterns of academic achievement for late element ary and middle school students. The addition of school attributes, and mode st declines in family effects, suggest that it is partially through (the al location of children to) school that general and rare-specific family disad vantage are played out. Particularly important are racial inequalities in p ublic/private school enrollment, school social class composition, instructi onal expenditure, and crime at the school level. I conclude by discussing t he implications of my argument and finding for research in the area of educ ation and stratification more broadly.