IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v674y2017i1p9-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Coleman Report, 50 Years On: What Do We Know about the Role of Schools in Academic Inequality?

Author

Listed:
  • Heather C. Hill

Abstract

Achievement outcomes for U.S. children are overwhelmingly unequal along racial, ethnic, and class lines. Whether and how schools contribute to educational inequality, however, has long been the subject of debate. This article traces the debate to the Coleman Report’s publication in 1966, describing the report’s production and impact on educational research. The article then considers the field’s major findings—that schools equalize along class lines but likely stratify along racial and ethnic lines—in light of current policy debates.

Suggested Citation

  • Heather C. Hill, 2017. "The Coleman Report, 50 Years On: What Do We Know about the Role of Schools in Academic Inequality?," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 674(1), pages 9-26, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:674:y:2017:i:1:p:9-26
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716217727510
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716217727510
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716217727510?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua D. Angrist & Sarah R. Cohodes & Susan M. Dynarski & Parag A. Pathak & Christopher R. Walters, 2016. "Stand and Deliver: Effects of Boston's Charter High Schools on College Preparation, Entry, and Choice," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(2), pages 275-318.
    2. Roland G. Fryer, Jr., 2014. "Injecting Charter School Best Practices into Traditional Public Schools: Evidence from Field Experiments," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1355-1407.
    3. Odis Johnson Jr. & Michael Wagner, 2017. "Equalizers or Enablers of Inequality? A Counterfactual Analysis of Racial and Residential Test Score Gaps in Year-Round and Nine-Month Schools," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 674(1), pages 240-261, November.
    4. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2013. "Testing for Racial Differences in the Mental Ability of Young Children," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 981-1005, April.
    5. Carolyn Riehl & Melissa A. Lyon, 2017. "Counting on Context: Cross-Sector Collaborations for Education and the Legacy of James Coleman’s Sociological Vision," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 674(1), pages 262-280, November.
    6. Elizabeth Pelletier & Paul Manna, 2017. "Learning in Harm’s Way: Neighborhood Violence, Inequality, and American Schools," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 674(1), pages 217-239, November.
    7. Eric A. Hanushek, 2003. "The Failure of Input-Based Schooling Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 64-98, February.
    8. Michael A. Rebell, 2017. "The Courts’ Consensus: Money Does Matter for Educational Opportunity," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 674(1), pages 184-198, November.
    9. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2004. "Understanding the Black-White Test Score Gap in the First Two Years of School," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 447-464, May.
    10. Margot I. Jackson & Kathleen Kiernan & Sara McLanahan, 2017. "Maternal Education, Changing Family Circumstances, and Children’s Skill Development in the United States and UK," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 674(1), pages 59-84, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roland G. Fryer, Jr, 2016. "The Production of Human Capital in Developed Countries: Evidence from 196 Randomized Field Experiments," NBER Working Papers 22130, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Alain Trannoy, 2016. "Equality of Opportunity: A progress report," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 126(5), pages 621-651.
    3. Dante Contreras & Jorge Rodríguez & Sergio Urzúa, 2019. "The Return to Private Education: Evidence from School-to-Work Transitions," Working Papers wp479, University of Chile, Department of Economics.
    4. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2013. "Testing for Racial Differences in the Mental Ability of Young Children," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(2), pages 981-1005, April.
    5. La Ferrara, Eliana & Carlana, Michela & Pinotti, Paolo, 2017. "Goals and Gaps: Educational Careers of Immigrant Children," CEPR Discussion Papers 12538, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Eric A. Hanushek & Steven G. Rivkin, 2009. "Harming the best: How schools affect the black-white achievement gap," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 366-393.
    7. Bernal, Pedro & Mittag, Nikolas & Qureshi, Javaeria A., 2016. "Estimating effects of school quality using multiple proxies," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-10.
    8. Naven, Matthew, 2019. "Human-Capital Formation During Childhood and Adolescence: Evidence from School Quality and Postsecondary Success in California," MPRA Paper 97716, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Matthew Davis & Blake Heller, 2019. "No Excuses Charter Schools and College Enrollment: New Evidence from a High School Network in Chicago," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 14(3), pages 414-440, Summer.
    10. Joe Regan-Stansfield, 2016. "Do good primary schools perform even better as academies?," Working Papers 141167564, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    11. Nancy E. Hill & Julia R. Jeffries & Kathleen P. Murray, 2017. "New Tools for Old Problems: Inequality and Educational Opportunity for Ethnic Minority Youth and Parents," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 674(1), pages 113-133, November.
    12. Kertesi, Gábor & Kézdi, Gábor & Hajdu, Tamás, 2022. "Idő és pénz a gyermeknevelésben Magyarországon, 1993-2010 [Time and money in raising children in Hungary, 1993-2010]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(11), pages 1255-1297.
    13. Lorenzo Neri & Elisabetta Pasini, 2020. "Heterogeneous Effects of School Autonomy in England," Discussion Paper Series, School of Economics and Finance 202010, School of Economics and Finance, University of St Andrews.
    14. Arouri, Mohamed & Ben-Youssef, Adel & Nguyen, Cuong Viet, 2019. "Ethnic and racial disparities in children's education: Comparative evidence from Ethiopia, India, Peru and Viet Nam," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 503-514.
    15. Andrew Eyles & Stephen Machin, 2019. "The Introduction of Academy Schools to England's Education," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1107-1146.
    16. Eric A. Hanushek, 2017. "Education and the Growth-Equity Trade-Off," NBER Chapters, in: Education, Skills, and Technical Change: Implications for Future US GDP Growth, pages 293-312, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Tymon Słoczyński, 2020. "Average Gaps and Oaxaca–Blinder Decompositions: A Cautionary Tale about Regression Estimates of Racial Differences in Labor Market Outcomes," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 73(3), pages 705-729, May.
    18. Eyles, Andrew & Machin, Stephen & McNally, Sandra, 2017. "Unexpected school reform: Academisation of primary schools in England," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 108-121.
    19. Robert W. Fairlie & Florian Hoffmann & Philip Oreopoulos, 2014. "A Community College Instructor Like Me: Race and Ethnicity Interactions in the Classroom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2567-2591, August.
    20. Katherine Michelmore & Susan Dynarski, 2016. "The Gap within the Gap: Using Longitudinal Data to Understand Income Differences in Student Achievement," Working Papers id:11153, eSocialSciences.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:674:y:2017:i:1:p:9-26. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.