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Community Colleges and the School‐to‐Work Transition: A Multilevel Analysis
Author(s) -
Mobley Catherine
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
sociological inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.446
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1475-682X
pISSN - 0038-0245
DOI - 10.1111/1475-682x.00016
Subject(s) - multilevel model , earnings , state (computer science) , socioeconomic status , context (archaeology) , work (physics) , corporate governance , gender pay gap , race (biology) , demographic economics , sociology , exploratory research , political science , economics , accounting , demography , social science , geography , management , population , computer science , gender studies , law , engineering , mechanical engineering , archaeology , algorithm , machine learning , wage
This study aims to illuminate whether the context of community colleges results in more positive outcomes for students. More specifically, the multilevel analysis aims to predict the race, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES) gaps in student outcomes, and how these are impacted by state coordination. Measures of state coordination include level of state funding, years of existence of state community college system, number of local institutions, type of governance board, degree to which the state is involved in program approval and centralization rank. Results suggest that state coordination has influence over wages in that a higher percentage of state funding was associated with a wider gender gap in earnings. Additionally, the variables associated with more positive outcomes in terms of the race gap in wages were program approval by the state and the presence of a coordinating board. This exploratory study demonstrates the potential of multilevel models in examining the school‐to‐work transition. Future research should be directed toward developing additional models of state coordination.