Aaron Gullickson
Sociological Science May 15, 2023
10.15195/v10.a13
Abstract
Understanding how outcomes for biracial individuals compare with those for their monoracial peers is critical for understanding how patterns of racial inequality in the contemporary United States might be shifting. Yet, we know very little about the life chances of biracial individuals because of limitations in most available data sources. In this article, I utilize American Community Survey data from 2010 to 2019 to examine the risk of being clearly behind expected grade among biracial and monoracial K-12 students, helping to fill a gap in our understanding. With large sample sizes for most biracial groups, I am able to estimate grade retention risk for biracial students with enough precision to differentiate even modest differences in risk relative to monoracial groups. The results indicate that for most biracial groups, biracial students have risk similar to their lower-risk monoracial constituent group. Although biracial students tend to have favorable family resource characteristics, controlling for these characteristics does little to change the overall placement of their outcomes.
Understanding how outcomes for biracial individuals compare with those for their monoracial peers is critical for understanding how patterns of racial inequality in the contemporary United States might be shifting. Yet, we know very little about the life chances of biracial individuals because of limitations in most available data sources. In this article, I utilize American Community Survey data from 2010 to 2019 to examine the risk of being clearly behind expected grade among biracial and monoracial K-12 students, helping to fill a gap in our understanding. With large sample sizes for most biracial groups, I am able to estimate grade retention risk for biracial students with enough precision to differentiate even modest differences in risk relative to monoracial groups. The results indicate that for most biracial groups, biracial students have risk similar to their lower-risk monoracial constituent group. Although biracial students tend to have favorable family resource characteristics, controlling for these characteristics does little to change the overall placement of their outcomes.
 | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. |
- Citation: Gullickson, Aaron. 2023. “Differences in the Risk of Grade Retention for Biracial and Monoracial Students in the United States, 2010 to 2019.” Sociological Science 10: 403-428.
- Received: January 9, 2023
- Accepted: March 17, 2023
- Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Filiz Garip
- DOI: 10.15195/v10.a13