Coursework: ITP Seminar

Ross Wiener, Vice President at the Aspen Institute and Executive Director of the Education & Society Program

Dr. Michelle Jackson, Assistant Professor, Sociology, Stanford University
https://sociology.stanford.edu/people/michelle-jackson

Title: We ask so much: The division of rationalized labor in the education industry 

Abstract: A key prediction of classical theories of the division of labor is that, over time, specialized occupations are responsible for an ever-narrower range of tasks. In contrast to the predictions of classical theories, I show that the macro-level forces of scientific development and rationalization in fact work to complicate tasks and responsibilities. I use the case of the education industry to cast light on this general pattern. Using data from school yearbooks, academic journals, job task analyses, and government reports, I examine changes in the division of labor in the education industry over the past c.150 years. I show that teachers and schools are asked to take on more tasks today than in the past, and consider some of the possible consequences for teachers, schools, and societies.

Elly Field, Postdoctoral Fellow, Brown University

Title: Understanding the ‘Package Deal’: Disentangling Parents’Intertwined Preferences for Schools and Neighborhoods

Abstract: My research takes as a starting point theeducation policies that link schools and neighborhoods by assigning students toschools based on where they live. These policies, in effect, build segregatedschools from segregated neighborhoods. Qualitative work has documented thatparents often account for this link when deciding where to live, citing adesire to find the “package deal” of a good neighborhood with a good localschool. Yet, in studying how race shapes parents’ preferences, pastexperimental research has only examined these contexts in isolation. Using anoriginal stated-choice experiment, I propose and test two theoreticalframeworks for how the package deal influences parents’ joint preferences forschools and neighborhoods. I find that the package deal means that parents’preferences for neighborhoods are shaped by the characteristics of the localschools and that their preferences for schools are shaped by the surroundingneighborhood. Further, I find that White and Latino parents seek out raciallyisolated schools and neighborhoods together. For White families, this meansthat when considering a majority non-White neighborhood, the package dealremains unappealing even when the school is predominantly White. In contrast,Black parents prefer to avoid being a racial minority in both their schools andneighborhoods but are satisfied when just one context is majority Black. Idiscuss the implications of these intertwined, interactive preferences forresearch on racial segregation and inequality, in particular how individualpreferences shape racial segregation and how the link between schools andneighborhoods affects segregation dynamics.

Graham Buhrman, GraduateStudent, Educational Psychology, UW-Madison

Title: U.S. history throughyoung people’s eyes: A cluster randomized trial of Mission US.

Abstract: Accordingto the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), U.S.history content knowledge among Grade 8 students has been steadily decliningfor nearly a decade. Specifically, in 2022, only 13% of Grade 8 students wereproficient on the U.S. history assessment. Gamified history curriculum andinstruction has been suggested as a supplement to regular instruction thatcould improve students' history knowledge, critical-thinking andperspective-taking skills, and interest in studying history. As part of hisresearch apprenticeship with the Education Development Center (EDC), Graham Buhrmanshares findings from the first national efficacy-trial of MissionUS. Mission US issuite of narrative history games intended to immerse middle school students inhistorical settings to improve their learning of and interest in U.S. history.Graham discusses the challenges of conducting a large-scale efficacy trial aswell some of the novel exploratory data analysis approaches used tocharacterize heterogeneous treatment effects. 

Meghan McCormick, Research & Impact Officer, Overdeck FamilyFoundation
 
Title: Long-term Effects of Social-EmotionalLearning: ExperimentalEvidence to Inform Policy and Practice 
 
Abstract: Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) programsare school-based preventive interventions that aim to improve children’ssocial-emotional skills and behaviors. Although meta-analytic research hasshown that SEL programs implemented in early childhood can improve academic andbehavioral outcomes at the end of treatment, there is limited work examiningprogram effects on children’s math and language skills in the longer-term.Moreover, few studies have considered variation in impacts by children’spre-intervention academic skills or examined how subsequent learningenvironments do or do not sustain initial impacts. Using an experimentaldesign, the current study leveraged administrative data available throughschool records to examine the impacts of one SEL program—INSIGHTS intoChildren’s Temperament—implemented in early elementary school on math andlanguage standardized test scores from third through sixth grade. Findingsrevealed positive average treatment effects on English/Language Arts (ELA) testscores in third and fourth grade, but not in fifth and sixth grade. Studentswho had higher academic skills at study enrollment showed lasting impacts onELA scores in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. There were no treatment impactson math skills, and no variation in effects on math achievement by baselineskills. Implications for policy, practice, and continued research on lastingeffects of early interventions will be discussion. 

No ITP Seminar in lieu of the Midwest Society of Education annual meeting

Jordan Conwell, Assistant Professor, Psychology, University of Texas at Austin
https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/sociology/faculty/jac24892

Title: Educational Attainment and Wealth Mobility in the Student Debt Cohort


Abstract: The paper to be presented assesses intergenerational wealth mobility by level of completed schooling (less than high school, high school, associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree, or master’s degree or higher) using data from the 1997 Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY-97), with the oldest cohort members now followed up to age 40. This provides a test of the hypothesis that education is a “Great Equalizer” of economic mobility outcomes that is novel in three ways: I consider the outcome of wealth mobility, at times in comparison to the literature’s more commonly studied outcome of income mobility; consider both parent-child wealth correlations and the direction of positional wealth mobility transitions of one decile or more; and estimate pooled results and then test for potential heterogeneity between Blacks, Hispanics, and those who are neither Black nor Hispanic. After presenting results, I will discuss implications for the understanding of education’s potential meritocratic power its debt financing era, with an emphasis on current debates about the value of bachelor’s and graduate level higher education for contemporary cohorts.

Karl Vachuska, GraduateStudent, Sociology, UW-Madison

Title: The effect of college attendance on mid-lifecognitive outcomes: A causal decomposition approach using the High School andBeyond data

Abstact: TBA