At the 2018 Annual Meeting, AERA sent out brief overviews, or snapshots, of selected studies being presented at the conference. AERA's "Study Snapshots" provide a high-level glimpse into new education research.

Study Snapshot: The Female Educator Tax: Documenting the Gendered Wage Gap in Public Education. Female teachers and school leaders in Pennsylvania earn significantly less financial compensation than their male counterparts, even when accounting for education, experience, school district context, and assignment. Surprisingly, gender wage gaps do not appear for district leaders. Read more

Study Snapshot: Religious Expression in Public Schools: A More Nuanced Understanding. A national survey of public teachers’ beliefs about their rights to religious expression finds that a majority of teachers are religious and believe in religious free expression in the abstract, but object to using religious free exercise in a dogmatic fashion or to discriminate against others in schools or other public spheres. Read more

Study Snapshot: Competing for Bachelor’s Degrees: Are Community Colleges Cutting into the Market Share of Four-Year Institutions? Giving community colleges the authority to create bachelor degree programs in Florida did not significantly impact bachelor degree production in similar programs at local four-year public or private nonprofit institutions. Read more

Study Snapshot: College Undermatching, Degree Attainment, and Minority Students. Using nationally representative data, this study found that students who attend a less selective college than their qualifications would permit—or “undermatch”—are less likely to graduate college within four years, as well as within six years, than non-undermatched students. Read more

Study Snapshot: Unfulfilled Promises: Transfer to a Charter School and Student Achievement in Indiana. Students who transferred to charter schools had significantly lower math gains over their first two years than if they remained in traditional public schools, creating a deficit for those students returning to public schools. Read more

Study Snapshot: School Violence and Victimization Among School-Attending Homeless Youth as Compared With Their Non-Homeless Peers. Homeless youths from all subgroups are at high risk of victimization and school violence, especially weapon involvement. Read more

Study Snapshot: School and Residential Segregation in Districts With Voluntary Integration Policies. Across 60 school districts with voluntary integration policies, average school-level racial segregation remained constant from 2000 to 2015, while economic segregation decreased by 1.8 percentage points. Read more

Study Snapshot: Alternative Principal Preparation Pathways: North Carolina's Regional Leadership Academies. Graduates of North Carolina’s alternative certification programs for school leaders—Regional Leadership Academies (RLA)—have relatively high placement rates and are taking administrator positions in low-performing schools with high concentrations of economically disadvantaged students. Read more

Study Snapshot: Executive Function Deficits in Kindergarten Predict Repeated Academic Difficulties Across Elementary School. Deficits in executive functions, especially in working memory, predict kindergarten children’s risk of experiencing repeated academic difficulties from first to third grade. Read more