计量经济分析 = Econometric analysis

A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

A Treatise on the Family

This meta-analysis reviewed the literature on socioeconomic status (SES) and academic achievement in journal articles published between 1990 and 2000. The sample included 101,157 students, 6,871 schools, and 128 school districts gathered from 74 independent samples. The results showed a medium to strong SES–achievement relation. This relation, however, is moderated by the unit, the source, the range of SES variable, and the type of SES–achievement measure. The relation is also contingent upon school level, minority status, and school location. The author conducted a replica of White’s (1982) meta-analysis to see whether the SES–achievement correlation had changed since White’s initial review was published. The results showed a slight decrease in the average correlation. Practical implications for future research and policy are discussed.

Socioeconomic Status and Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analytic Review of Research

Statistical Analysis with Missing Data

A pesar de la relativamente corta historia de la Psicologia como ciencia, existen pocos constructos psicologicos que perduren 90 anos despues de su formulacion y que, aun mas, continuen plenamente vigentes en la actualidad. El factor «g» es sin duda alguna uno de esos escasos ejemplos y para contrastar su vigencia actual tan solo hace falta comprobar su lugar de preeminencia en los modelos factoriales de la inteligencia mas aceptados en la actualidad, bien como un factor de tercer orden en los modelos jerarquicos o bien identificado con un factor de segundo orden en el modelo del recientemente desaparecido R.B.Cattell.

The g Factor: The Science of Mental Ability

On the topic of stratification in secondary schools, this paper uses ethnographic research to interpret the findings of survey analyses and uses survey studies to assess the causal implications and generalizability of ethnographic findings. The authors criticize survey research for ambiguity concerning the measurement of within-school stratification and for lack of attention to the mechanisms through which the effects of grouping and tracking occur. At the same time, ethnographic research is seen as limited by an inability to demonstrate the significance of between-track differences in social and instructional conditions and by the failure to disentangle track effects from the influence of social class and other preexisting circumstances. The authors advocate longitudinal, quantitative research that is sensitive to the actual dimensions of stratification in schools, and to classroom conditions and processes that vary across levels of the academic hierarchy.

/pdf/the-effects-of-stratification-in-secondary-schools-synthesis-1kgkrpw7nw.pdf

The Effects of Stratification in Secondary Schools: Synthesis of Survey and Ethnographic Research:

Ability grouping appears to be a logical means of organizing a student body with diverse academic skills. Many observers contend, however, that the practice favors students in high-ability groups at the expense of students in lower groups. An organizational conception of ability grouping clarifies the rationale for ability grouping but also illuminates its shortcomings: Grouping students leads to segregation on nonacademic as well as academic criteria, and differentiated instruction may lead to unequal results for students assigned to different groups. These issues are explored with data from 92 honors, regular, and remedial English classes in eighth and ninth grade. We examine the characteristics of students placed in different groups, similarities and differences in the quality of instruction across groups, and the links between instruction and achievement. The data show that rates of student participation and discussion are higher in honors classes, contributing to the learning gaps between groups. Rat...

An Organizational Analysis of the Effects of Ability Grouping

After a decade of studies, this report draws together RAND's research on New American Schools, highlighting the organization's significant contribution to comprehensive school reform and noting the challenges that came with implementing whole-school designs. About a decade ago, New American Schools (NAS) set out to address the perceived lagging performance of American students and the lackluster results of school reform efforts. As a private nonprofit organization, NAS's mission was-and is-to help schools and districts raise student achievement levels by using whole-school designs and design team assistance during implementation. Since its inception, NAS has engaged in a development phase (1992-1993), a demonstration phase (1993-1995), and a scale-up phase (1995-present). Over the last ten years, RAND has been monitoring the progress of the NAS initiative. This book is a retrospective on NAS and draws together the findings from RAND research. The book underscores the significant contributions made by NAS to comprehensive school reform but also highlights the challenges of trying to reform schools through whole-school designs. Divided into sections on each research phase, the book concludes with an afterword by NAS updating its own strategy for the future. This book will interest those who want to better understand comprehensive school reform and its effects on teaching and learning within high-stakes accountability environments.

Facing the Challenges of Whole-School Reform: New American Schools After a Decade

De facto tracking-the association between students' courses in disparate subjects, regardless of the decline of institutional mechanisms that organized de jure tracking-is a contested feature of secondary schools. Some analysts imply that de facto tracking arises simply because students who do well in one area often do well in other areas. Other analysts contend that pronounced tracking systems maintain racial, ethnic, and social-class segregation and thus that de facto tracking is driven, in part, by the sociodemographic composition of schools. This article investigates the school-level correlates of de facto tracking. An analysis of data from High School and Beyond suggests that the higher the correlation between students' achievements in different domains, the more pronounced the de facto tracking. However, racial-ethnic and socioeconomic diversity are also positively associated with de facto tracking, even though the achievement correlation is controlled. These findings suggest that de facto tracking may be maintained by both technical and demographic aspects of schools, both of which must be considered in any evaluation of tracking.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3090282.pdf

Sociodemographic Diversity, Correlated Achievement, and De Facto Tracking

Teacher supply and demand issues are of critical importance as our society enters the 21st century. Over the next decade, there will be an increasing demand for new teachers––about two million––due in part to a dramatic increase in enrollments and high attrition rates as an aging teacher workforce becomes eligible for retirement. Where these teachers will come from and where they will teach is important to understand as our society faces increasing racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity. Amid this diversity is a continuing concern that some racial-ethnic groups are disproportionately placed at risk. Thus, this article focuses on the supply and demand patterns of minority teachers, with special attention to teachers of students in high-risk districts. We analyze data on teachers from Texas between 1979 and 1996. We provide a variety of descriptive results––both univariate and multivariate––showing that while Texas has been successful in attracting minority teachers, it has a long way to go in attaining t...

Mark Berends

Papers

The Effects of Stratification in Secondary Schools: Synthesis of Survey and Ethnographic Research:

An Organizational Analysis of the Effects of Ability Grouping

Facing the Challenges of Whole-School Reform: New American Schools After a Decade

Sociodemographic Diversity, Correlated Achievement, and De Facto Tracking

Supply and Demand of Minority Teachers in Texas: Problems and Prospects