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An Examination of the Relationship Among High School Size, Social Capital, and Adolescents' Mathematics Achievement
Author(s) -
Carolan Brian V.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of research on adolescence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.342
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1532-7795
pISSN - 1050-8392
DOI - 10.1111/j.1532-7795.2012.00779.x
Subject(s) - psychology , academic achievement , social capital , association (psychology) , confounding , developmental psychology , student achievement , social psychology , political science , statistics , psychotherapist , mathematics , law
In an effort to enhance both adolescents' social capital and increase achievement, public school districts across the U nited S tates have created small high schools. Using data derived from a longitudinal and nationally representative study of U . S . high school students, the E ducational L ongitudinal S tudy of 2002, results show that when adolescents' parents know their friends' parents math achievement is significantly predicted. This association, however, is nonsignificant when conditioned on standard measures of prior achievement and family background, among others. In addition, while this relationship is also strong and significant within small high schools, it, too, is eliminated when conditioned on select confounding variables. These findings are discussed in terms of current efforts to improve achievement through reductions in school size.