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 AERA 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.
Is Dis-Ability a Foregone Conclusion? Research and Policy Solutions to Disproportionality 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.
How Does Schooling Affect Inequality in Cognitive Skills? The View From Seasonal Comparison Research 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.
Wealth-Based Inequalities in Higher Education Attendance: A Global Snapshot 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.
Fostering, Tailoring, Negotiating: The Complexities of Collaborative Coaching in Schools Under Pressure to Improve 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.
Biased Opportunities: The Role of Implicit and Explicit Bias in Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment 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.
Transportation Inequities and School Choice: How Car, Public Transit, and School Bus Access Affect Families’ Options 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.
Choosing Alone? Peer Continuity Disparities in Choice-Based Enrollment Systems 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.
The Dynamics and Measurement of High School Homelessness and Achievement 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.
Trends in Parents’ Time Investment at Children’s Schools During a Period of Economic Change Ariel Kalil, Samantha Steimle, Rebecca M. Ryan AERA 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
Toward a Class-Conscious Approach to Cultural Responsiveness 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.
The Widening Achievement Gap Between Rich and Poor in a Nordic Country Astrid Marie Jorde Sandsør, 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.
Uneven Progress: Recent Trends in Academic Performance Among U.S. School Districts 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.
Replicating and Extending Effects of “Achievement Gap” Discourse 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.
Test Score Patterns Across Three COVID-19-Impacted School Years 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.
Do Long Bus Rides Drive Down Academic Outcomes? 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.
Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in the Relationship Between Children’s Early Literacy Skills and Third-Grade Outcomes: Lessons From a Kindergarten Readiness Assessment 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.
Do Low-Income Students Have Equal Access to Effective Teachers? 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.
The Forgotten 20%: Achievement and Growth in Rural Schools Across the Nation Angela Johnson, Megan Kuhfeld, James Soland AERA 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.
Racial Disparities in Pre-K Quality: Evidence From New York City’s Universal Pre-K Program 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.
Achievement Gaps in the Wake of COVID-19 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.
District-Level School Choice and Racial/Ethnic Test Score Gaps 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.
Paying for Whose Performance? Teacher Incentive Pay and the Black–White Test Score Gap Andrew J. Hill, Daniel B. Jones Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, April 2021 Researchers found that performance pay increases the conditional Black–White gap.
Parents’ Online School Reviews Reflect Several Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in K–12 Education Nabeel Gillani, Eric Chu, Doug Beeferman, Rebecca Eynon, Deb Roy AERA 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.
Evaluating Achievement Gaps Between Monolingual and Multilingual Students 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.
A Negotiated Disadvantage? California Collective Bargaining Agreements and Achievement Gaps 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.
The Effects of Absenteeism on Academic and Social-Emotional Outcomes: Lessons for COVID-19 Lucrecia Santibañez, Cassandra M. Guarino Educational Researcher, February 2021 Researchers found that student outcomes generally suffer more from absenteeism in mathematics than in ELA.
When Does Inequality Grow? A Seasonal Analysis of Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Learning From Kindergarten Through Eighth Grade 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.
The College Preparatory Pipeline: Disparate Stages in Academic Opportunities Heather E. Price American Educational Research Journal, November 2020. Researchers found that leaks in the college preparatory pipeline divert out historically marginalized students.
Bias in the Air: A Nationwide Exploration of Teachers’ Implicit Racial Attitudes, Aggregate Bias, and Student Outcomes 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.
School’s Out: The Role of Summers in Understanding Achievement Disparities 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.
Experimental Effects of “Achievement Gap” News Reporting on Viewers’ Racial Stereotypes, Inequality Explanations, and Inequality Prioritization 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.
Trends in Children’s Academic Skills at School Entry: 2010 to 2017 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.
Gender Test Score Gaps Under Equal Behavioral Engagement 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.
Low-Income Female Students and the Reversal of the Black-White Gap in High School Graduation Brian Clark, Ying Shi AERA 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.
Teachers Are People Too: Examining the Racial Bias of Teachers Compared to Other American Adults 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.
First-Generation College Students as Academic Learners: A Systematic Review 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.
Principal Quality and Student Attendance 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.
Categorical Inequality in Black and White: Linking Disproportionality Across Multiple Educational Outcomes 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.
Deportations Near the Schoolyard: Examining Immigration Enforcement and Racial/Ethnic Gaps in Educational Outcomes J. Jacob Kirksey, Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, Michael A. Gottfried, Jennifer Freeman, Christopher S. Ozuna AERA 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.
Are Achievement Gaps Related to Discipline Gaps? Evidence From National Data Francis A. Pearman, II, F. Chris Curran, Benjamin Fisher, Joseph Gardella AERA Open, October 2019. Researchers found that districts with larger racial discipline gaps have larger racial achievement gaps (and vice versa).
Socioeconomic Status and Academic Outcomes in Developing Countries: A Meta-Analysis 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.
Mathematics Learning in Language Inclusive Classrooms: Supporting the Achievement of English Learners and Their English Proficient Peers 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.
States as Sites of Educational (In)Equality: State Contexts and the Socioeconomic Achievement Gradient Heewon Jang, Sean F. Reardon AERA 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.
Do Schools Reduce or Exacerbate Inequality? How the Associations Between Student Achievement and Achievement Growth Influence Our Understanding of the Role of Schooling 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.
“Achievement Gap” Language Affects Teachers’ Issue Prioritization 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.
Early Elementary Science Instruction: Does More Time on Science or Science Topics/Skills Predict Science Achievement in the Early Grades? F. Chris Curran, James Kitchin AERA 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.
Do Student Mindsets Differ by Socioeconomic Status and Explain Disparities in Academic Achievement in the United States? Mesmin Destin, Paul Hanselman, Jenny Buontempo, Elizabeth Tipton, David S. Yeager AERA 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.
Gender Achievement Gaps in U.S. School Districts Sean F. Reardon, Erin M. Fahle, Demetra Kalogrides, Anne Podolsky, Rosalía C. Zárate 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.
Does STEM Stand Out? Examining Racial/Ethnic Gaps in Persistence Across Postsecondary Fields 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.
Answering the Bell: High School Start Times and Student Academic Outcomes Kevin C. Bastian, Sarah C. Fuller AERA 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.
The Impact of School SES on Student Achievement: Evidence From U.S. Statewide Achievement Data 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.
Student-Teacher Racial Match and Its Association With Black Student Achievement: An Exploration Using Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling 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.
Stress, Sleep, and Performance on Standardized Tests: Understudied Pathways to the Achievement Gap Jennifer A. Heissel, Dorainne J. Levy, Emma K. Adam AERA 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.
The Relationship Between Test Item Format and Gender Achievement on Math and ELA Tests in Fourth and Eigth Grade Students 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.
Will Public Pre-K Really Close Achievement Gaps? Gaps in Prekindergarten Quality Between Students and Across States 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.
Effects of a Summer Mathematics Intervention for Low-Income Children 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.
The Gap Within the Gap: Using Longitudinal Data to Understand Income Differences in Educational Outcomes Katherine Michelmore, Susan Dynarski AERA 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.
Kids Today: The Rise in Children's Academic Skills at kindergarten Entry 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.
Seasonal Dynamics of Academic Achievement Inequality by Scoioeconomic Status and Race/Ethnicity: Updating and Extending Past Research With New National Data 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).
A Research Synthesis of the Associations Between Socioeconomic Background, Inequality, School Climate, and Academic Achievement 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.
Have Gender Gaps in Math Closed? Achievement, Teacher Perceptions, and Learning Behaviors Across Two ECLS-K Cohorts Joseph R. Cimpian, Sarah T. Lubienski, Jennifer D. Timmer, Martha Makowski, Emily Miller AERA Open, October 2016. Researchers revealed gender gaps in mathematics achievement and teacher perceptions.
The Politics of Achievement Gaps: U.S. Public Opinion on Race-Based and Wealth-Based Differences in Test Scores 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.
Patterns of Cross-National Variation in the Association Between Income and Academic Achievement Anna K. Chmielewski, Sean F. Reardon AERA Open, June 2016. Researchers found considerable variation across countries in income achievement gaps.
A Multigrade, Multiyear Statewide Examination of Reading Achievement: Examining Variability Between Districts, Schools, and Students 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.
An Effort to Close Achievement Gaps at Scale Through Self-Affirmation 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.
Effects of School Segregation and School Resources in a Changing Policy Context Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, March 2016. The researcher found no evidence that an increased number of African American students negatively affects achievement growth.
Science Achievement Gaps Begin Very Early, Persist, and Are Largely Explained by Modifiable Factors 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.
Science Achievement Gaps by Gender and Race/Ethnicity in elementary and Middle School: Trends and Predictors 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.
Practice Issues in Estimating Achievement Gaps From Coarsened Data 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.
The Effect of Community Linguistic Isolation on Language-Minority Student Achievement in High School 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.
More Than Sanctions: Closing Achievement Gaps Through California's Use of Intensive Technical Assistance 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.
Do Summer Time-Use Gaps Vary by Socioeconomic Status? 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.