Dissertations and Theses

Date of Award

2012

Document Type

Thesis

Department

Public Service Management

Keywords

African-American, Education, Social Context

Abstract

"The following study looks at the academic performance of black students and how variations in their social context can trigger high or low achievement. In order to analyze the differing outcomes in student performance, I look at their social context on the basis of 3 contextual categories: (1) home characteristics (e.g., parent background, number of guardians, and/or locale) (2) schools characteristics (e.g., enforced school policies, school location, and/or class size) (3) student behavioral characteristics (e.g., student report cards, at10tiveness, and/or at10dance). Also, this study considers the po10tial of using factors among high performing students to impact low impact low performing students as they are applied. The following outline presents the proposed direction of the study: Literature Review  An explanation of the goals of this study.  A 3-part review of information weaving key elements of past research together to substantiate the background this research is based on. The 3 parts will be reviews of past studies speaking on the contextual influence of homes, schools, and individual student behaviors. Methodology  Operational definitions of “high achievement” and “low achievement” based on a set of responses selected directly from the NELS dataset. Analysis  A comparison, of measures of home, school, behavior descriptive and correlations. I will also use a binary logistic regression model to Discussion  A review of the finding from the NELS dataset. Conclusion  Po10tial solutions will be suggested relating to the comparative differences in the context of high/low performing students. The implications of policy influence will be spoken about here."

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