Income and campus application disparities among European and non-European heritage Hispanic undergraduate applicants.

Leveraging every undergraduate application submitted by self-identified Hispanic applicants to the University of California system in the 2016 and 2017 application cycles, we show that a significant number of applicants claim Hispanic identity by virtue of European heritage. We subsequently demonstrate that Hispanic-identifying students of European descent are significantly more affluent and more likely to apply to selective University of California campuses than their non-European Hispanic peers. We comment on the practical implications of these disparities, as well as their relevance for studies of inequality in the social sciences and education.

Gentrification, displacement, and academic achievement: A formal mediation analysis.

Living in a disadvantaged neighborhood has long been known to adversely affect children's academic achievement. Comparatively less is known about what happens to children's academic achievement when disadvantaged neighborhoods gentrify. This study uses data from a nationally representative sample of children from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (n = 1,163) along with counterfactual methods and a value-added design to examine how gentrification and residential displacement figure into children's academic achievement patterns. This study provides a formal mediation analysis that decomposes the total effect of gentrification on children's academic achievement into that which operates through residential displacement versus alternative pathways. This study finds that the effects of gentrification on children's achievement patterns were concentrated amongst low-income children and were observed most strongly when gentrifiers were White. Low-income children exposed to gentrification saw declines in their academic performance trajectories, especially in math. These adverse effects were not found to be mediated by residential displacement. A comprehensive set of sensitivity analyses indicates that results were robust to unobserved confounding, alternative model specifications, different weighting strategies, and multiple measures of gentrification and displacement.

Risk, Protection, and Identity Development in High-Achieving Black Males in High School.

The resilience of high-achieving Black male students is often overshadowed in scholarly literature by narratives of deficit, disorder, and disdain that position Black males as particularly vulnerable in educational spaces. This study builds from two prior analyses of a group of mathematically high-achieving Black males living in high-poverty urban communities and attending underresourced schools during their middle school years and focuses on the external risk and protective factors these students experienced during high school. Findings suggest that Black male high achievers were forced to overcome a confluence of institutional and curricular barriers while leveraging relational and organizational resources that promoted positive identity development and mathematics achievement.