Assari Shervin, Zare Hossein
Department of Internal Medicine, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
Department of Family Medicine, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
J Biomed Life Sci. 2024;4(2):92-110. doi: 10.31586/jbls.2024.1128. Epub 2024 Nov 19.
Inequalities exist in children's educational outcomes-including reading proficiency, school discrimination, and school disciplinary actions-across zip codes with different levels of educational childhood opportunity index (COI). This study examines the interaction between race and educational environment on children's educational outcomes. We hypothesize that race, parental education, and their interaction are associated with perceived school discrimination, which in turn reduces their cognitive, academic, and emotional wellbeing. We also hypothesize that Black children with high socioeconomic status (SES) report high perceived school discrimination in high-COI settings.
Data were drawn from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, which measures a wide range of educational, cognitive, and emotional outcomes. At the same time, the ABCD children are sampled across areas with vast differences in COI rankings, that can be classified into these five categories: very high, high, average, low, and very low educational COIs. Our structural equation models (SEM) tested the additive and interactive effects of race and educational attainment on perceived school discrimination, and the effects of school discrimination on various cognitive abilities (reading proficiency, picture vocabulary, and list sorting working memory), school suspension, as well as depressed mood. Our multi-group SEM assessed how these relationships vary across educational COI levels.
Our findings showed that high SES Black children report highest school discrimination in residential areas with highest COIs. This is based on the observation that the interaction between race and parental education on experiences of school discrimination were only significant in areas with highest COI. Across residential areas with different COI levels, students who experienced higher school discrimination had higher suspension, worse depression, and worse cognitive performance.
While higher COIs are associated with better academic outcomes, Black-White gaps exist in the role of increased COI through increased racial bias that children perceive. These findings underscore the complexity of educational equity, suggesting that improving COI alone is insufficient for eliminating racial disparities in school experiences. Policies should be in place to reduce school-based discrimination against Black students in high COI settings.
在儿童教育成果方面存在不平等现象，包括阅读能力、学校歧视和学校纪律处分等，这些不平等现象在具有不同教育童年机会指数（COI）水平的邮政编码区域中存在。本研究考察种族与教育环境对儿童教育成果的相互作用。我们假设种族、父母教育程度及其相互作用与感知到的学校歧视相关，而这反过来又会降低他们的认知、学业和情绪幸福感。我们还假设社会经济地位高（SES）的黑人儿童在高COI环境中报告的学校歧视感知较高。
数据取自青少年大脑认知发展（ABCD）研究，该研究测量了广泛的教育、认知和情绪成果。同时，对ABCD儿童在COI排名差异巨大的地区进行抽样，这些地区可分为以下五类：教育COI非常高、高、平均、低和非常低。我们的结构方程模型（SEM）测试了种族和教育程度对感知到的学校歧视的累加和交互作用，以及学校歧视对各种认知能力（阅读能力、图片词汇和列表排序工作记忆）、学校停学以及抑郁情绪的影响。我们的多组SEM评估了这些关系在不同教育COI水平上如何变化。
我们的研究结果表明，社会经济地位高的黑人儿童在COI最高的居民区报告的学校歧视程度最高。这是基于以下观察结果：种族与父母教育程度在学校歧视经历上的相互作用仅在COI最高的地区显著。在不同COI水平的居民区中，经历较高学校歧视的学生停学率更高、抑郁情况更严重、认知表现更差。
虽然较高的COI与更好的学业成果相关，但通过儿童感知到的种族偏见增加，COI的增加在作用方面存在黑白差距。这些发现强调了教育公平的复杂性，表明仅改善COI不足以消除学校经历中的种族差异。应制定政策以减少高COI环境中针对黑人学生的校内歧视。
