Current Research:

Dissertation

The Value of a College Degree: Differential Returns to Higher Education and Processes of Discrimination in the 21st Century

S. Michael Gaddis

Partial Abstract: Research suggests that racial and gender discrimination have declined since the 1960s, while the U.S. has also seen a significant increase in the number of women and minorities attending college. However, little is known about how these groups have been able to translate educational attainment into success on the labor market compared to white men. In other words, does a college degree pay off at the same rate for all American adults, regardless of race and gender? This question is critical to understanding the role of education in reducing inequality in society and it is the topic of my dissertation research. My dissertation focuses on the following three questions: (1) Do the returns to a college education differ for individuals based on race and gender due to discrimination in the labor market? (2) Do such inequalities vary across geographic location in the United States and employment sector (perhaps due to localized structural and historical factors)? (3) Are there differential returns between attending elite private, large public, and small liberal arts schools?

Social Capital

What's In a Relationship?: Examining Race, Class, and Contact Time as Determinants of Social Capital in Mentoring Relationships

S. Michael Gaddis

Abstract: Over the past twenty-five years, social capital has emerged as an important yet highly debated concept in social science research. The current literature leaves researchers to question what characteristics of a relationship are important in producing beneficial outcomes. Conflicting theories highlight the importance of differing relationship characteristics, including the amount of time spent between individuals, social class difference and racial similarity. I argue that the answer is unclear due to the measurement of substantially different concepts as well as a persistent endogeneity problem. I examine data from a quasi-experimental design on mentoring relationships and run estimations using propensity score weighting to address selection bias in estimating causal effects of social capital. The results indicate that the amount of time spent in a relationship has a significant effect on both academic and deviant behavioral outcomes for youths, but this finding is moderated through the racial match of a relationship. Additionally, counter to what some theory suggests, social class difference between individuals has no significant effect on any of the examined outcomes.

School Poverty

Contagion, Institutions, or Selection?: The Effect of Peer Poverty on Student Test Score Growth

Douglas L. Lauen and S. Michael Gaddis

Abstract: That impoverished contexts have harmful effects on children is a widely held belief among social scientists and policymakers. Disentangling the influence of the effects of individual and family background from the effects of context is conceptually and methodologically complex, however, so the hypothesized existence of contextual effects of peer groups, schools, neighborhoods, organizations, and occupations remains open to scholarly inquiry. This study seeks to contribute to contextual effects research by estimating a longitudinal model of contextual effects and by carefully specifying and accounting for bias from omitted and mismeasured student and family background characteristics. We use a multiple cohort panel design to estimate the effect of peer poverty rates on elementary school student test score initial status and growth. To estimate effects we use interval metric and vertically equated test score outcomes and variation across time in peer poverty from the universe of children in grades three through eight in the state of North Carolina from 2001 to 2006. The study first estimates multilevel growth models, which produce a composite of the within- and between-student peer poverty effect. Consistent with prior research, we find a negative effect of attending school with high poverty peers on student 3rd grade scores. With this specification we find no evidence, however, of peer poverty on test score growth over time. To address omitted variable bias, we then use a student fixed model to control for time-invariant student unobservables. Results from these models fail to reproduce the negative effect of high poverty peers on initial status and also fail to produce evidence that peer poverty affects test score growth. To address selection bias, we exploit an exogenous source in peer poverty: a “structural” school change, the elementary to middle school transition, which is a primary mechanism through which students’ peer poverty levels change. Using this technique we find that students with large increases and large decreases in peer poverty due to structural school changes suffer negative test score test decrements in middle school. These results suggest that peer poverty effects are nonlinear and that extreme changes in context may have detrimental effects on test score achievement growth. The study also provides a set of analytical approaches for scholars in other sub disciplines to consider when estimating contextual effects.

School Accountability under NCLB

Differing School Accountability Incentive Structures and the Effects of NCLB on Student Performance

Douglas L. Lauen and S. Michael Gaddis

School Accountability under NCLB

Shining a Light or Fumbling in the Dark?: The Effects of NCLB's Subgroup-Specific Accountability Pressure on Disadvantaged Student Performance

Douglas L. Lauen and S. Michael Gaddis

Cultural Capital

Cultural Mobility: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Effect of Cultural Capital on Academic Attitudes and Educational Outcomes

S. Michael Gaddis and Andrew Payton

Abstract: Does cultural capital lead to upward mobility for disadvantaged youths within the U.S. education system? Sociologists have struggled with the answer to this question for the last thirty years. In this research, we examine data on low-income youth to examine the effects of cultural capital on academic attitudes and educational outcomes. We find that museum attendance and reading habits have positive effects on student attitudes regarding their own ability to succeed academically and the value of school, but effect sizes are smaller in longitudinal compared to cross-sectional models. Initial effects of these cultural capital measures on GPA disappear once we control for academic attitudes. We conclude that cultural capital only indirectly affects academic outcomes through attitudes.