Racial-ethnic differences at the intersection of math course-taking and achievement

Despite increases in the representation of African American and Hispanic youth in advanced math courses in high school over the past two decades, recent national reports indicate that substantial inequality in achievement remains. These inequalities can temper one's optimism about the degree to which the United States has made real progress toward educational equity. Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS), the authors find that the math achievement gap is most pronounced among those students who take the most demanding high school math classes, such as precalculus and calculus. The authors explore the roles of family socioeconomic status and school composition in explaining this pattern. Findings suggest that among those students reaching the advanced math high school stratum, Hispanic youth from low-income families and African American youth from segregated schools fare the worst in terms of closing the achievement gap with their white peers. The authors discuss potential explanations for the achievement differences observed and stress the need for more research that focuses explicitly on the factors that inhibit minority/majority parity at the top of the secondary curricular structure. Keywords math, course-taking, race-ethnicity, segregation, social class DOI: 10.1177/0038040710375689