M.Ed. (Psychology of Education) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

FEBRUARY, 2016 A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Development Planning. / Since the dawn of democracy in South Africa, significant strides have been made in (ensuring equal access to) education. With that Section 29 of the highest law in the land – the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Act 108 of 1996) – has made provision for the realisation of a basic education for all citizens. Moreover, significant portions of the national budget have since been set aside annually in ensuring the realisation of this right. Yet, the quality of education remains unequal across municipal space(s), even against the backdrop of the amalgamation of previously disadvantaged spaces (such as Luphisi) with affluent areas (such as Mbombela/Nelspruit). This has resulted in the persistence of ‘two worlds of education’ within municipalities as in the case of Mbombela Local Municipality. A world of well-resourced schools and exceptional matric pass rates flourish in Nelspruit/Mbombela, while a world of impoverishment and low academic performance rates is experienced in Luphisi. This research refers to this predicament as ‘structural inequalities between Model C and Rural Schools’ resulting in spatial educational inequalities. The research explores the problems re structural inequalities between Model C and Rural Schools, using the case of Sdungeni Secondary School in Mbombela Local Municipality’s Luphisi village to uncover these hindrances. The report departed by focusing on birth location and the socioeconomic background of learners and how this has a great influence in the kind of education a learner is likely to receive. Using the qualitative method of enquiry, which is a multi-layered type of research technique that crosscuts disciplines, fields, and subjects, the study arrived at presenting a cohort and demonstration of multiple truths rather than ‘a single truth’. The research brought to light that whilst the government has made concerted efforts at ensuring the equal structures of education in different municipal spaces, these efforts are still hampered by class (as a residue of apartheid) as well as government’s adoption of neoliberalist policies which further perpetuate the rich-poor divide. It was also noted that the confusion regarding the governance of schools – due in large part to traditional and/or structural issues – may be hindering the upgrading of rural schools with amenities and higher grades. Consequently, schools – by virtue of their location, morphology, still play a significant role in reproducing and perpetuating social class divisions as well as ordering different societies according to their ‘latently prescribed’ nature(s) of function

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. Johannesburg, 1997. / After Mozambique became independent from Portugal, the main aim of the government policy towards education was to create equity of opportunity to enter the formal education system for different social, gender and age groups. However, females are still under-represented in higher education particularly in courses which require an extensive mathematical background. Thus, the purpose of this study was, to explore possible gender differences in performance and attitudes toward mathematics among 1996 BUSCEP students at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane. Those students were tested on several affective and cognitive variables, using a questionnaire and tests. The results suggested that gender performance and attitudes towards mathematics tend to be similar, and the inequalities found, were more evident in the participation in mathematics related careers. These findings emphasise the need to further examine the interrelationships between gender and career choices which should be conducted with students from the secondary school. / AC2017

“For we've done so much, with so little, for so long, that now we can do anything, with nothing at all.” This popular phrase at the independent tuition-free school called Harlem Prep in many ways reflected Central Harlem itself in the late-1960s. On one hand, decades of racial discrimination and unfulfilled promises had defined schooling in the neighborhood. There were no public high schools in the area, and talented youth were being pushed out of formal education. Conversely, there was a resilience and continued, centuries-long desire for educational equity. As a result—and buoyed by the dynamic political environment—a handful of leaders in Harlem decided to create a school, similar to other efforts in U.S. cities. However, unlike other emerging Black alternative schools, it would be different than its peers: it would be a multicultural school, and it would be for students who had been pushed out of education and onto the streets. “Liberation, Learning, and Love” explores the unknown history of this school, Harlem Prep. Although firmly rooted in this era’s civil rights activism, Harlem Prep’s educational philosophy—its radical multiculturalism—was also distinct and innovative compared to other ideologies. The school’s leaders, teachers, and students were able to re-imagine education on a community-wide, institutional, and classroom level. Through its “unity in diversity” approach, Harlem Prep not only graduated and sent to college over 750 students, most of them previously out of school, but galvanized the notable Black community of Harlem. This project introduces multicultural education to the lexicon of Black alternative schools in the 1960s and 1970s, and reshapes how historians conceptualize equity, emancipatory education, and beyond. Harlem Prep imagined a more loving, pluralistic world for its young people. Perhaps its story can inspire those of us who strive to create a similar future for our youth today.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine “pockets of success” through the voices of participant stakeholders in low socio-economic status urban high schools and communities to identify opportunities and structures that can improve postsecondary outcomes for students. Examining those pockets of success to rise above the dynamics that obstruct pathways to success, and identifying opportunities for students to transcend their social, economic, and human condition, are the impetuses for the study. The study design is grounded in portraiture, created by Lawrence-Lightfoot and Hoffman-Davis (1997), to detail the intricate dynamics and relationships that exist in high schools. Portraiture steps outside of the traditional boundaries of quantitative and qualitative research to converge narrative analysis with public discourse in a search for authenticity. Identifying what the participants value, how they create and promote opportunities for students, the school’s role in rebuilding the surrounding community, and the community’s priority for graduates, provided the groundwork. The review of the literature reconstructs the term “opportunity” in the context of the urban high school, aligning it with the moral purposes of education. It traces the history of educational and social justice barriers for minority students, outlines the impact of leadership decision-making on the evolution of the urban high school, and addresses increasing the capacity of schools to create opportunities for students to succeed. Participants revealed the foundations for success, challenges and goals toward success, conduits to facilitate that success, and collaborations required to build an agenda to couple school-based stakeholders, civic groups, and national organizations to the creation of a national platform to improve outcomes for urban public high school students in disenfranchised communities. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013.

This dissertation explores the perspectives of culturally and linguistically diverse learners and English learners on school conditions that enable them to share their heritage languages and cultures, as well as the ways that these learners propose that their heritage languages and cultures could be more recognized in an English-only middle school setting. This study focused specifically on the role that culturally and linguistically diverse learners and English learners perceived that they played in the process of their own social empowerment, a role that could be achieved through the development of their voices by becoming critically involved in creating spaces for their heritage languages and cultures in English-only settings. In this study, student voice is the means for the culturally and linguistically diverse and English learners' voices to emerge: the voices that are frequently oppressed because of the lack of power. This framework provides guidance to integrate the excluded learners' voices in a school milieu that habitually muffles these voices. Listening to the bicultural and bilingual voices is important but not sufficient to challenge the power structure of U.S. schools. In this study, culturally and linguistically diverse learners and English learners conceptualized ways that their heritage languages and cultures could be (more) recognized in their school settings. The voices of the students are important; they should be respected and valued. Hearing the students in this study reminds us and validates the assertion that students from diverse languages and cultures are not monolith. They have different and unique experiences and this study gave voice to some of those. Leaders from state level, district level, and school level could open the doors for students to share their experiences in the schools; in the case of this study, to learn from these students what a school milieu that authentically recognizes their cultures and languages is. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This dissertation consists of essays studying the impacts of education policies on outcomes measured at three distinct points in the high school to labor force continuum: course taking and academic performance in high school, choice of college and major, and labor market returns to completing college. The chapters are linked by their focus on understanding how these policies affect disadvantaged and under-represented populations, and by their exploitation of exogenous variation in the timing and assignment of treatments to identify causal effects. The first chapter asks whether lack of information about ability helps explain why high-performing students from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to under-invest in their education. In the presence of uncertainty, an information shock may lead individuals to revise their beliefs and decision-making. To explore this question, I examine an individualized signal of academic aptitude known as "AP Potential'' that is provided in Preliminary SAT (PSAT) reports. The signal provides information about students' aptitude for Advanced Placement (AP), a national program that offers college-level courses and exams in high school. In the United States, participation in AP has become a key step on the path to admission into selective four-year colleges. I begin by collecting high-frequency panel data on subjective beliefs from students in Oakland, California. Students stated their expected performance on the PSAT, beliefs about their abilities, and expectations about future academic outcomes before and after receiving their PSAT results reports. This survey data allows me to identify the information shock students experienced from the PSAT. I establish that although the PSAT is, on average, a negative information shock, the AP Potential signal itself contains valuable information: students with the same PSAT score and prior beliefs about own ability who receive the AP Potential signal experience a more positive information shock. The information shock in turn leads students to revise their beliefs about their ability, the number of AP classes they plan to take, and the likelihood that they will attend a four-year college, consistent with a Bayesian updating framework. I focus next on estimating whether the AP Potential signal has a causal effect on the probability of participating in AP and the number of AP classes in which students actually enroll by exploiting the deterministic relationship between PSAT scores and the AP Potential signal in a Regression Discontinuity (RD) design. Both graphical and more formal non-parametric and parametric methods robustly demonstrate that surveyed students on the margin of receiving the signal enroll in approximately one more AP course their junior year, increasing the probability of participation in the AP program by at least 26 percentage points. Given the demographics and performance levels of students at the margin, this effect amounted to increasing the number of high-ability, under-represented high school students taking college-level courses in Oakland. In addition, mismatch between course enrollments and student ability decreased. When I extend this analysis to students in other schools who did not take the survey, I find that the AP Potential signal had no effect on their course enrollment decisions. This finding is equally important, as it indicates that only students who received an explanation of their PSAT results, the AP Potential signal, and ways to use the information exhibited a behavioral response to the signal. The AP Potential message is not especially conspicuous on PSAT reports, so students who were surveyed likely received an intensified treatment. The results suggest that providing a credible, individualized signal of ability is a cost-effective means of increasing human capital investments among disadvantaged students. The second chapter examines how men and women respond to changes in the competitiveness of university admissions. Experimental research has shown that women respond to competition differently than men, which could help explain gender gaps in math performance and selection into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs. A growing body of work has found suggestive evidence that these relationships also exist in practical educational settings. However, exogenous variation in competition has been restricted to the experimental literature, leaving the differential causal effects of competitive admissions an open question. An affirmative action policy enacted in Venezuela in 2002 provides a unique opportunity to explore how men and women's academic performance and college application decisions respond to changes in competition. The policy led to exogenous shocks in the competitiveness of the university admissions process, effectively increasing competition for socioeconomically advantaged students and decreasing competition for disadvantaged students. Students who neither belonged to the advantaged nor disadvantaged groups defined by the policy were unaffected and thus served as a control group. I use a triple-difference approach on the universe of college applicants between 1994 and 2007 to estimate the impact of changes in the level of competition on high school GPA, math and verbal test scores, and the selectivity of college applications by gender. My results suggest that men and women respond differently to changes in the competitiveness of university admissions, consistent with experimental evidence. The results indicate that males, in both the advantaged and disadvantaged groups, did not respond to the policy change. Women, on the other hand, responded strongly, improving their performance in GPA and in the verbal test in response to both the increase in competition and the increased incentive to exert effort provided by affirmative action. One of the main findings, however, is that increased competition led to lower math test scores for women, while reduced competition led women to increase their performance in math. A student's goal should be to maximize the academic index used for admissions, which places equal weight on verbal and math scores. Under time constraints, if women believe they are more effective at improving their verbal scores, they should allocate more time to studying for the verbal test, perhaps even allocating too much time away from studying math, which would result in lower math scores. However, only women who experienced higher levels of competition had lower math scores. Women from the disadvantaged group who experienced less competition improved their math scores, as well as their GPA and verbal scores. The second main finding is that women in the disadvantaged group who experienced less competition applied to more selective programs. In particular, the competitiveness of their top-ranked choice, which should reflect their true preference given the assignment mechanism in place, saw the biggest increase, even net of the effect due to their improved performance. Given the persistence of a wage gender gap despite women's higher educational attainment, how competitive admissions influence sorting into specific universities and majors emerges as a key question. The third chapter, which is a joint work with Ruth Uwaifo appearing in the Economics of Education Review, studies how expanding access to higher education affects college graduates once they reach the labor market. We focus on a major university education reform in Venezuela known as Mission Sucre, which provided free, open-access tertiary education targeted to the poor and marginalized, and its potential impact on returns to university education on non-participants. We begin by finding that returns to education decreased in Venezuela over the period Mission Sucre was introduced, despite a previous upward trend and an economic boom. Although returns to all levels of education declined during this period, the return to university education fell by over 10 percentage points more than other levels. Motivated by these preliminary findings, we evaluate the possible role of Mission Sucre on the significant decline in returns to university education. For our main analysis, we compare the returns to university education and technical education in a difference-in-difference strategy. We focus on these particular levels of education because both are tertiary levels and are more likely to have similar general trends in returns. More importantly, Mission Sucre originally focused on only expanding university education. This allows us to classify those with university education as a treatment group and those with technical education as a potential control group. We find that Mission Sucre led to a 2.7 percentage point decrease in returns to university education of non-participants in the 23-28 age cohort between 2007 and 2008, the year the first cohort of Mission Sucre graduates entered the labor force. Further, states with higher shares of Mission Sucre students had a larger decline in the returns to university education. Specifically, a 1 percent increase in the share of Mission Sucre students led to a 0.4 percentage point decline in the returns to university education. Although we provide ample evidence of the impact of Mission Sucre, we cannot state whether the noted effect of the program is driven solely by an excess supply of skilled labor, or a combination of the excess supply and other negative externalities of the program on nonparticipants, such as a change in the perceived overall quality of public higher education. Nevertheless, our results present a cautionary tale of the short-term effects of a rapid and large expansion in access to university education.

Parents have been shown to be a crucial driver in a child's educational outcomes in both the economics and education literature. However, researchers have yet to understand the roles that educational interventions, information, and policies might have on parental behavior and engagement toward their child's education and, in turn, how to effectively promote parental engagement for the benefits of children. In my dissertation, I examine how educational interventions and policies can impact the behavior and decision-making of parents and in turn affect student achievement. Specifically, I add to the scholarly literature evidence on (a) how being identified as gifted student affect parental levels of engagement and time investments, (b) how timely information about academic progress might change parental behaviors and improve educational outcomes, and (c) how immigrant mothers react to an expansion of pre-K specifically targeted at their children. Chapter one examines the short-term and long-term effects of an elementary school gifted education program in California that clusters 6-8 gifted students in classrooms. While I examine the academic effects of the program, I emphasize the analysis on the role of parent engagement and time investments in the lives of gifted children. While the gifted education literature has studied the causal effects of programs, there is limited evidence on how parent engagement might change as a result of these programs and its potential as a mechanism for achievement effects. Therefore, this study contributes to the economic debate of whether parent engagement is a complement or substitute to education quality. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach, I primarily find small to no evidence on short-term academic effects, but stronger effects on longer-term course-taking and college outcomes. On the parent side, I find that while most parents are not more engaged overall, parents of minority gifted children and low-socioeconomic students are. The implication is that there is heterogeneity in the manner by which parents react behaviorally to students that are identified as gifted. In Chapter two, a joint paper with Peter Bergman, we run a randomized controlled trial in West Virginia examining the effects of a high-frequency academic information intervention on middle and high school student' academic outcomes. In this field experiment, we send out three types of alerts to parents - weekly missing assignments, weekly class absences, and monthly low grade average - during the 2015-16 school year. We find that the intervention reduces course failures by 38%, increases class attendance by 17%, and increases retention. We find no evidence that test scores improve, but find that there are significant improvements on in-class exam scores. The evidence of improvement in test scores show that there are information frictions between parent and child, and thus parents may have inaccurate beliefs about their child's abilities due to a lack of complete information. Chapter three examines the maternal labor supply and pre-K enrollment effects of a bilingual pre-K policy implemented in Illinois during the 2010-11 school year, which came after the implementation of a statewide universal pre-K program in 2007. Research has shown the importance of quality preschool in the development of a child, with minorities particularly sensitive to the prevalence of quality early childhood education. In this study, I exploit variation in a policy mandating that any school with at least twenty identified English Language Learner student of a particular language is required to open up a bilingual classroom for those students. Using multiple control groups and various difference-in-differences specifications, I find that there is little to no change in maternal labor supply among Hispanics and recent immigrants, including the probability of being in the labor force, hours worked per week, and wage and salary income. However, I also find a significant and robust increase of 18-20 percentage points in the enrollment of 3- and 4-year old children into pre-K programs in Illinois. This result shows that, even in a state where there is universal access to pre-K, the design of such policies might not have sufficient reach to high-need parents. Taken together, this dissertation helps deepen our understanding of the various roles parents might affect educational outcomes and inequality. As my results demonstrate, there are various ways which help and incentivize parents to react in a manner that will improve childhood and long-term outcomes. Whether by programs, information, or public policy, the tools are many, yet it is crucial that scholarly work continues to dive deeper into how parents, children, and other stakeholders react.

This dissertation broadly focuses on how to improve equity in education. The first chapter focuses on education at the primary level and analyzes whether progressive vouchers in education can serve as a tool to decrease socioeconomic stratification at the school level and increase educational outcomes for low-income students. I use the Chilean setting, where a universal voucher system has been in place for over three decades, and analyze the impact of a major reform were voucher amounts were increased by 50 percent for students in the lowest 40 percent of the income distribution. Progressive vouchers were implemented in Chile to help low-income students benefit from school choice; increasing the revenues that schools receive for serving low-income students and lowering the relative prices of private voucher schools for eligible parents. I use a national dataset to implement a regression discontinuity design exploiting that eligibility is a discontinuous function of a socioeconomic ranking. Results reject that eligible students chose schools with higher test scores or average SES, and that they are doing better than non-eligible students in math and language test scores. Findings, I argue, are partly a consequence of the multiple barriers that low-income students face when choosing a school, including lack of information, the complexity associated with evaluating a substantial number of options, and issues of social belonging that prevent them from attending better performing schools. The second chapter focuses on education at the tertiary level and analyses whether loans for higher education can help to increase tertiary education for low-income low-performing students. I use data from Chile and exploit the fact that access to loans for universities and technical institutions is a discontinuous function of students’ academic performance. The latter allows me to implement a regression discontinuity design to look at the causal impact of different types of loans on higher education access, persistence and graduation. Results show that loans for universities induce low-performing students away from technical institutions and towards higher quality university alternatives, where they have little chances of succeeding. This increases the total amount of time and money that students spend without substantially increasing, or even decreasing, their graduation rates and expected incomes. Loans for technical institutions are better in that they keep students away from alternatives that are too expensive or academically demanding. Results point to the unintended costs of offering university loans to low-performing students, steaming from a potential mismatch between low-performing students and higher quality university alternatives. The third chapter, joint with Juan Matta, analyzes the role of social interaction in higher education choices. In particular, we analyze spillovers from older to younger siblings in the choice of college and major. We use data from Chile and exploit discontinuous admission rules generated by Chile’s centralized system of admission to postsecondary education. Our findings reveal strong sibling spillovers in the choice of major/institutions. Having an older sibling enrolling in a given major within an institution, as opposed to just applying, increases by 87% the likelihood of enrolling in that same major/institution combination, and it increases by 51% the probability of enrolling in any major within that same institution. An analysis of potential mechanisms suggests that spillovers are present even when siblings are far apart in age and are unlikely to attend college together, and even in cases where they are likely to be well informed about the program. Results provide an explanation as to why low-income students may be underrepresented in some high quality educational alternatives.

This study traced the development of the Equity 2000 Program in the Fort Worth Independent School District from its inception in 1990 to its sixth and final year as an exemplary program for equal access to higher education for minority and underserved youth. Program components included mathematics, counseling, staff development, academic enrichment activities, parent education and higher education linkages. Both primary and secondary sources were evaluated from the perspectives of internal and external criticism. The following conclusions were reached: 1) District policy must change if minority students are going to access algebra and geometry. 2) The lack of involvement of other curriculum areas created primarily a mathematics inservice program. 3) Required inservice was necessary to provide improved and more effective campus and district results. 4) The precollege guidance and counseling component needed integration with the mathematics component. 5) Lack of principals' involvement in the early development of the program contributed to uneven administrative support. 6) There was no definitive strategy for parental inclusion. 7) Funding sources were inadequate to fully implement all parts of the program. 8) There was limited participation of local institutions of higher education. 9) There was a lack of an ongoing, structured evaluation process to document the program's effectiveness. 10) Attitudes and perceptions of minority students and their parents about success in higher level mathematics courses can change over time. 11) The program was costly with limited documentation of the results. 12) Much of the training provided mathematics teachers and guidance counselors should be preservice instruction. The researcher made the following recommendations: conduct a historical study at each Equity site; continue the Summer Mathematics and Guidance Institutes; continue the Saturday Academy and the Algebra/Geometry Readiness Academies; provide outreach efforts to parents; provide precollege information to students and their parents; and provide related teacher and counselor preservice training.