CENTER FOR EDUCATION POLICY ANALYSIS
The Widening Academic Achievement Gap between the Rich and the Poor: New Evidence and Possible Explanations
Authors:Sean F. Reardon,
Publication Type:
Book, Book Chapter
Year of Publication: 2011
Year of Publication: 2011
Editor(s): In Richard Murnane & Greg Duncan (Eds.)
Journal: Whither Opportunity? Rising Inequality and the Uncertain Life Chances of Low-Income Children, New York: Russell Sage Foundation
Abstract
In this chapter I examine whether and how the relationship
between family socioeconomic characteristics and academic achievement
has changed during the last fifty years. In particular, I investigate
the extent to which the rising income inequality of the last four
decades has been paralleled by a similar increase in the income
achievement gradient. As the income gap between high- and low-income
families has widened, has the achievement gap between children in high-
and low-income families also widened?
The answer, in brief, is yes. The achievement gap between
children from high- and low-income families is roughly 30 to 40 percent
larger among children born in 2001 than among those born twenty-five
years earlier. In fact, it appears that the income achievement gap has
been growing for at least fifty years, though the data are less certain
for cohorts of children born before 1970. In this chapter, I describe
and discuss these trends in some detail. In addition to the key finding
that the income achievement gap appears to have widened substantially,
there are a number of other important findings.
First, the income achievement gap (defined here as the income
difference between a child from a family at the 90th percentile of the
family income distribution and a child from a family at the 10th
percentile) is now nearly twice as large as the black-white achievement
gap. Fifty years ago, in contrast, the black-white gap was one and a
half to two times as large as the income gap. Second, as Greg Duncan and
Katherine Magnuson note in chapter 3 of this volume, the income
achievement gap is large when children enter kindergarten and does not
appear to grow (or narrow) appreciably as children progress through
school. Third, although rising income inequality may play a role in the
growing income achievement gap, it does not appear to be the dominant
factor. The gap appears to have grown at least partly because of an
increase in the association between family income and children’s
academic achievement for families above the median income level: a given
difference in family incomes now corresponds to a 30 to 60 percent
larger difference in achievement than it did for children born in the
1970s. Moreover, evidence from other studies suggests that this may be
in part a result of increasing parental investment in children’s
cognitive development. Finally, the growing income achievement gap does
not appear to be a result of a growing achievement gap between children
with highly and less-educated parents. Indeed, the relationship between
parental education and children’s achievement has remained relatively
stable during the last fifty years, whereas the relationship between
income and achievement has grown sharply. Family income is now nearly as
strong as parental education in predicting children’s achievement.
This chapter is now published in the book Whither Opportunity:https://www.russellsage.org/publications/whither-opportunity