Search

OBJECTIVES: We examined the extent to which within-school segregation, as measured by unevenness in the distribution of Black and White adolescents across levels of the English curriculum (advanced placement-international baccalaureate-honors, general, remedial, or no English), was associated with smoking, drinking, and educational aspirations, which previous studies found are related to school racial/ethnic composition. METHODS: We analyzed data from wave 1 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, restricting our sample to non-Hispanic Blacks (n = 2731) and Whites (n = 4158) who from 1994 to 1995 attended high schools that enrolled Black and White students. RESULTS: White female students had higher predicted probabilities of smoking or drinking than did Black female students; the largest differences were in schools with high levels of within-school segregation. Black male students had higher predicted probabilities of high educational aspirations than did White male students in schools with low levels of within-school segregation; this association was attenuated for Black males attending schools with moderate or high levels of within-school segregation. CONCLUSIONS: Our results provide evidence that within-school segregation may influence both students' aspirations and their behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies suggest the importance of examining cumulative risk or advantage as potential predictors of health over the life course. Researchers investigating the cumulative health effects of education, however, have mainly conceptualized education in years or degrees, often disregarding educational quality and access to educational opportunities that may place individuals on divergent academic trajectories. We investigate whether educational advantages in youth are associated with an individual's health trajectory. We develop a novel index of educational advantage and employ random-intercept modeling using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. A widening health disparity was found in adulthood between respondents with greater and those with fewer educational advantages in youth. Furthermore, among respondents with few educational advantages, Blacks experience a greater health burden as they age compared to Whites and Hispanics. These results suggest that differential access to educational advantages during youth may contribute to persisting health disparities in adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]