Expectations on Track?: High School Tracking and Adolescent Educational Expectations

This paper examines the role of adaptation in expectation formation processes by analyzing how educational tracking in high schools affects adolescents’ educational expectations. I argue that adolescents view track placement as a signal about their academic abilities and respond to it in terms of modifying their educational expectations. Applying a difference-in-differences approach to the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988, I find that being placed in an advanced or honors class in high school positively affects adolescents’ expectations, particularly if placement is consistent across subjects and if placement contradicts tracking experiences in middle school. My findings support the hypothesis that adolescents adapt their educational expectations to ability signals sent by schools.

[1]  J. Oakes,et al.  Detracking: The Social Construction of Ability, Cultural Politics, and Resistance to Reform , 1997, Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education.

[2]  A. Portes,et al.  Status Attainment Processes. , 1973 .

[3]  Steven J. Ingels,et al.  Base-Year to Fourth Follow-up Data File User's Manual. National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988. NCES 2002-323. , 2002 .

[4]  Maureen T. Hallinan,et al.  Curriculum Differentiation and High School Achievement , 1999 .

[5]  K. Alexander,et al.  Curricula and Coursework: A Surprise Ending to a Familiar Story. , 1982 .

[6]  Michael Cohen.  The Organizational Differentiation of Students in Schools the Organizational Differentiation of Students in Schools I Am Indebted to Robert M. Hauser for Numerous Discussions and Helpful Suggestions; To , 2007 .

[7]  J. Ogbu.  Minority Education and Caste: The American System in Cross-Cultural Perspective. , 1978 .

[8]  Ralph Stinebrickner,et al.  Learning About Academic Ability and the College Drop-Out Decision , 2009 .

[9]  S. L. Hanson,et al.  Lost talent : unrealized educational aspirations and expectations among U.S. youths , 1994 .

[10]  E. Yuchtman,et al.  DETERMINANTS OF CAREER PLANS: INSTITUTIONAL VERSUS INTERPERSONAL EFFECTS , 1975 .

[11]  J. Macleod,et al.  Ain't no makin' it: Leveled aspirations in a low-income neighborhood , 1987 .

[12]  L. B. Otto,et al.  Evidence for a Social Psychological View of the Status Attainment Process: Four Studies Compared , 1979 .

[13]  K. Goyette,et al.  College for some to college for all: social background, occupational expectations, and educational expectations over time. , 2008, Social science research.

[14]  M. Hallinan,et al.  Students' characteristics and the peer-influence process. , 1990 .

[15]  M. Gangl.  Causal Inference in Sociological Research , 2010 .

[16]  Maureen T. Hallinan,et al.  Ability Grouping and Student Friendships , 1985 .

[17]  Barbara Schneider,et al.  The ambitious generation : America's teenagers, motivated but directionless , 2000 .

[18]  J. Eccles,et al.  Surviving the Junior High School Transition Family Processes and Self-Perceptions as Protective and Risk Factors , 1994 .

[19]  Samuel R. Lucas,et al.  Sociodemographic Diversity, Correlated Achievement, and De Facto Tracking , 2002 .

[20]  C. Halaby,et al.  Panel Models in Sociological Research: Theory into Practice , 2004 .

[21]  Robert M. Hauser,et al.  Adoption? Adaptation?: Evaluating the Formation of Educational Expectations , 2011 .

[22]  Robert Crosnoe,et al.  High School Curriculum Track and Adolescent Association with Delinquent Friends , 2002 .

[23]  Diego Gambetta.  Were They Pushed or Did They Jump?: Individual Decision Mechanisms in Education , 1989 .

[24]  Richard Breen,et al.  BELIEFS, RATIONAL CHOICE AND BAYESIAN LEARNING , 1999 .

[25]  A. Portes,et al.  The educational and early occupational attainment process. , 1969 .

[26]  Charles F. Manski,et al.  Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers , 2022 .

[27]  Sabrina Hirsch,et al.  Making the grade. , 1993, Nursing times.

[28]  J. Rosenbaum.  College-For-All: Do Students Understand What College Demands? , 1997 .

[29]  Tamara Wilder,et al.  Educational Expectations and Attainment , 2010 .

[30]  A. B. Sørensen.  Organizational Differentiation of Students and Educational Opportunity. , 1970 .

[31]  Samuel R. Lucas,et al.  Tracking Inequality: Stratification and Mobility in American High Schools , 2001 .

[32]  J. Oakes,et al.  Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality. , 1986 .

[33]  J. Reynolds,et al.  Is There a Downside to Shooting for the Stars? Unrealized Educational Expectations and Symptoms of Depression , 2010 .

[34]  Doris R. Entwisle,et al.  Tracking and Transitions through the Middle Grades: Channeling Educational Trajectories. , 1996 .

[35]  C. Meghir,et al.  Educational Reform, Ability, and Family Background , 2004 .

[36]  Seán Kelly.  The Contours of Tracking in North Carolina , 2007 .

[37]  Sophia Catsambis.  The Path to Math: Gender and Racial-Ethnic Differences in Mathematics Participation from Middle School to High School. , 1994 .

[38]  Eric Grodsky,et al.  Real and imagined barriers to college entry: Perceptions of cost , 2004 .

[39]  A. C. Kerckhoff.  The Status Attainment Process: Socialization or Allocation? , 1976 .

[40]  Ralph Stinebrickner,et al.  Learning about Academic Ability and the College Dropout Decision , 2009, Journal of Labor Economics.

[41]  J. Goldthorpe,et al.  EXPLAINING EDUCATIONAL DIFFERENTIALS , 1997 .

[42]  Basit Zafar,et al.  How Do College Students Form Expectations? , 2011, Journal of Labor Economics.

[43]  R. Merton.  The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy , 1948 .

[44]  F. Schwartz.  Supporting or Subverting Learning: Peer Group Patterns in Four Tracked Schools1 , 1981 .

[45]  A. Haller.  1 – Reflections on the Social Psychology of Status Attainment1 , 1982 .

[46]  江俊儒.  Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs , 2011 .

[47]  S. Morgan.  Methodologist as Arbitrator , 2004 .

[48]  Kim A. Weeden,et al.  Occupational Plans, Beliefs about Educational Requirements, and Patterns of College Entry , 2013 .

[49]  Sean Kelly,et al.  Curriculum tracking and teacher expectations: evidence from discrepant course taking models , 2012 .

[50]  Adam Gamoran,et al.  The Stratification of High School Learning Opportunities. , 1987 .

[51]  Ryan Macdonald,et al.  Have Adolescents Become Too Ambitious? High School Seniors' Educational and Occupational Plans, 1976 to 2000 , 2006 .

[52]  J. Eccles,et al.  Expectancy-Value Theory of Achievement Motivation. , 2000, Contemporary educational psychology.

[53]  David Kjellberg.  Measuring Expectations , 1999, Identification Problems in the Social Sciences.

[54]  B. Wolfe,et al.  Center for Demography and Ecology University of Wisconsin-Madison The Role of Expectations in Adolescent Schooling Choices: Do Youths Respond to Economic Incentives? , 2008 .

[55]  Joshua D. Angrist,et al.  Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion , 2008 .

[56]  Paul T. von Hippel.  Regression with missing Ys: An improved strategy for analyzing multiply imputed data , 2007 .

[57]  John W. Meyer.  The Effects of Education as an Institution , 1977, American Journal of Sociology.

[58]  James E. Rosenbaum.  Beyond College For All: Career Paths for the Forgotten Half , 2002 .

[59]  P. Willis.  Learning to Labor: How Working-Class Kids Get Working-Class Jobs , 1976 .

[60]  T. Newcomb,et al.  Readings in Social Psychology , 1948, Teachers College Record.

[61]  Catherine Riegle-Crumb,et al.  Those Who Choose and Those Who Don’t: Social Background and College Orientation , 2010 .

[62]  M. Rothschild,et al.  Introduction to "Studies of Supply and Demand in Higher Education" , 1994 .

[63]  A. Gamoran,et al.  High School English: A National Portrait , 2002 .

[64]  Joan Z. Spade,et al.  CURRICULUM TRACKING AND STATUS MAINTENANCE , 1987 .

[65]  Y. Shavit,et al.  Ability Grouping and Contextual Determinants of Educational Expectations in Israel. , 1985 .

[66]  Adam Gamoran,et al.  Instructional and Institutional Effects of Ability Grouping. , 1986 .

[67]  J. Kmenta.  Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion , 2010 .

[68]  P. Rosenbaum.  The Consequences of Adjustment for a Concomitant Variable that Has Been Affected by the Treatment , 1984 .

[69]  D. Entwisle,et al.  Framing the Future: Revisiting the Place of Educational Expectations in Status Attainment , 2010 .

[70]  S. Morgan.  On the Edge of Commitment: Educational Attainment and Race in the United States , 2005 .

[71]  S. Morgan.  ADOLESCENT EDUCATIONAL EXPECTATIONS , 1998 .

[72]  Jeff Dominitz,et al.  Eliciting Student Expectations of the Returns to Schooling , 1994 .

[73]  Deborah J. Stipek,et al.  Developmental change in children's assessment of intellectual competence , 1989 .

[74]  S. Hansell,et al.  Curriculum Tracking and Delinquency. , 1982 .

[75]  Todd R. Stinebrickner,et al.  Math or Science? Using Longitudinal Expectations Data to Examine the Process of Choosing a College Major , 2011 .

[76]  Maureen T. Hallinan,et al.  Tracking and students' friendships , 1998 .

[77]  H. Shimizu,et al.  What Is Tracking? Cultural Expectations in the United States, Germany, and Japan , 2003 .