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Essential or Expendable Supports? Assessing the Relationship between School Climate and Student Outcomes

By on January 10, 2017 in Articles

Joshua Klugman

Sociological Science, January 10, 2017
DOI 10.15195/v4.a2

Abstract
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Sociologists of education argue that school organizational practices and climates influence students’ academic outcomes. The predominant measure of school climates are aggregated student and teacher survey reports, which are diffusing into official educational statistics. Unfortunately, most studies are unable to rigorously assess the causal effects of these measures of school organization. This study does so by examining the effects of school climate experienced in grades 4–8 by different cohorts of students in Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Improvement in school climates has small positive associations with students’ eighth grade test scores and null to minimal associations with students’ chances of on-time ninth grade promotion and high school graduation.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Joshua Klugman: Department of Sociology, Temple University
Email: klugman@temple.edu

Acknowledgements: The author thanks Elaine Allensworth, Kaleen Healey, Paul Moore, Eliza Moeller, Stephen Morgan, Shanette Porter, Lauren Sartain, and Penny Bender Sebring for valuable comments on previous drafts of this article. The author is also grateful to the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research for letting him conduct his analyses on their server.

Conflicts of Interest Disclosure: While working on this study, the author was employed by the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research (which developed the survey measures discussed here) and for part of the time was funded by the Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation. Cofounder Charles Lewis sits on the board of the nonprofit organization UChicago-Impact, a sister organization of the Consortium that sells its services administering the school climate measures used in this study (branded as the “5Essentials”). Cofounder Penny Sebring is a director of the Consortium and, before the advent of UChicago-Impact, has authored studies arguing the school climate measures are beneficial for school improvement. Sebring was given an early draft of this study, but the author had final say over analyses and conclusions. The views expressed in this study are those of the author and the author alone.

Data Availability and Replication: Because of data security issues, only Consortium staff have access to this study’s data. Syntax files producing these analyses are available at
http://sites.temple.edu/klugman/curriculum-vitae/essential-supports/.


Supplemental Material


  • Citation: Klugman, Joshua. 2016. “Essential or Expendable Supports? Assessing the Relationship between School Climate and Student Outcomes.” Sociological Science 4: 31-53.
  • Received: September 10, 2016
  • Accepted: October 1, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v4.a2


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Twentieth Century Intercohort Trends in Verbal Ability in the United States

By on June 13, 2016 in Articles

Shawn F. Dorius, Duane F. Alwin, Julianna Pacheco

Sociological Science, June 13, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a18

Abstract
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Vocabulary test score trends from the General Social Survey contradict the widespread conclusion that scores on standardized intelligence tests have systematically increased over the past century. We use a vocabulary test included in 20 nationally representative surveys administered since 1974 to test three hypotheses proposed to account for these trends, including changes in the formal measurement properties of the test, over-time changes in the meaning of education, and intercohort differences in exposure to words on the test. We find no support for the idea that test scores have declined because of changes in the structure of the test. Instead, our results show that education selectivity accounts for some cohort differences among prewar cohorts and that cohort-specific differences in exposure to words on the test account for nearly all variation in vocabulary scores of respondents born after 1945, suggesting different causal processes have influenced cohort verbal ability during distinct historical eras.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Shawn F. Dorius: Department of Sociology, Iowa State University
Email: sdorius@iastate.edu

Duane F. Alwin: Department of Sociology and Criminology, Pennsylvania State University
Email: dfa2@psu.edu

Julianna Pacheco: Department of Political Science, University of Iowa
Email: julianna-pacheco@uiowa.edu

Acknowledgements: This research was supported by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Training Grant from the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan (T32 HD007339). Duane Alwin was supported in part by a grant from the National Institute of Aging (R01AG021203), a grant from the National Science Foundation (SES-1331454), and the McCourtney endowment, College of the Liberal Arts, Pennsylvania State University, during the writing of this article. Please direct correspondence to Shawn F. Dorius (sdorius@iastate.edu).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Dorius, Shawn F., Duane F. Alwin and Julianna Pacheco. 2016. “Twentieth Century Intercohort Trends in Verbal Ability in the United States.” Sociological Science 3: 383-412.
  • Received: January 13, 2016
  • Accepted: January 28, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Stephen Morgan
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a18


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