The role of opportunity to learn in ethnic inequality in mathematics

ABSTRACT

Continuing efforts have been made in the United States (US) to examine the role of schooling in alleviating the ethnic/racial inequalities in student performance. Using the US data from the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), this study examines the between-school and within-school racial/ethnic differences in opportunities to learn (OTL) and their relationship to the corresponding differences in student mathematics achievement. In all models and for all types of students, OTL showed a significantly positive relationship to student mathematics achievement, and its effect size was about four times as large as the socioeconomic status (SES) effect. The results suggest the importance of OTL in alleviating the racial/ethnic inequalities in mathematics performance.

KEYWORDS:

• Opportunity to learn
• educational equality
• ethnic gap
• social class
• mathematics education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

William H. Schmidt

William H. Schmidt is a University Distinguished Professor of statistics and education at Michigan State University. He serves as director of the Center for the Study of Curriculum Policy and holds faculty appointments in Statistics and Education. He served as National Research Coordinator and Executive Director of the US National Center which oversaw participation of the United States in the IEA sponsored Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS).  He has published in numerous journals including the Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of Educational Statistics, EEPA, Science, Educational Researcher and the Journal of Educational Measurement. He has co-authored ten books including Why Schools Matter, Inequality for All, and Schooling Across the Globe: What We Have Learned From Sixty Years of Mathematics and Science International Assessments. His current writing and research concerns issues of academic content in K-12 schooling including the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, assessment theory and the effects of curriculum on academic achievement. He is concerned with educational policy related to mathematics.

Siwen Guo

Siwen Guo, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Renmin University of China. Her research interests focus on the application of quantitative methods to large-scale data and policy research, and the effect of mathematics curriculum on student performance.

Richard T. Houang

Richard T. Houang is a senior research specialist and an adjunct faculty member in measurement and quantitative methods. He is currently the director of research for the Center for the Study of Curriculum (CSC). His current research focuses on curriculum assessment, the relationship between mathematics and science curriculum and student achievement, item characteristics and student performance, domain-referenced and classroom assessment. He has co-authored numerous books and articles on curriculum analysis and international comparative education.