The deficit narrative is a critical component of the white racial frame and attributes disparate outcomes to the racialized groups themselves rather than the policies and actions that create conditions that produce these disparities. Educational research that employs racialized groups as a variable in quantitative research holds potential to…

Discusses problems with the use of stochastic (probabilistic) models for the analysis of juvenile offense data. Analyzes longitudinal data for White and non-White delinquents which show significant evidence of offense specialization and a random distribution of offenses if no specialization occurs. (Author/GC)

Briefly reviews the content and impact of Arthur R. Jensen's 1969 Harvard Educational Review (HER) article How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement, noting that "the reaction stirred by this article" in the subsequent issues of HER "was sharp." Among the critics were J. M. V. Hunt, Jerome Kagan, David Elkind, while Carl Bereiter, James…

Presents a brief, quick-reference check list of methodological errors, fallacies, mistakes, and instances of out-and-out trickery that are found in recent well-known studies of IQ, IQ heritability, and race differences, focusing primarily upon the works of psychologist Jensen, Herrnstein, Eysenck, including selected works of William Shockley and…

This document reports on a study of the likelihood of individuals participating in the Federal food stamp program and the Medicaid program and the likelihood of exiting those programs. Data were analyzed from the first panel file of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Special problems with representativeness and measurement…

A review of literature relevant to equal educational opportunity is presented in order to support an argument for the use of normative models in educational research. The literature review shows that confusion over the 1966 Coleman Report was due to a mismatch between the implied reform objective of the report and its statistical approach. The…

Research on assessing the cultural fairness of individual test items is reviewed, with emphasis on Birnbaum's three-parameter logistic model. As defined in this review, differential item characteristics are exhibited when examinees from one group have a lower probability of answering correctly than do examinees of equal ability from another group.…

This paper focuses on the use of the variable race in educational research. Researchers are clearly considered to have the right to choose their variables. But, the use of race in a nonscholarly fashion is held to be professionally inadequate and often detrimental to black Americans. For years, researchers using race to make comparison s between…

This book is considered to provide a sober, balanced, and scholarly examination of the evidence that bears on the role of genetic and environmental factors in the determination of group differences in ability in the United States. The first chapter provides something of the background and recent history of the concern with racial-ethnic…

The purpose of this study was to improve both statistical and judgmental methods for detecting potentially biased test items in an attempt to examine the agreement between the results obtained with these methods. If greater agreement between methods can be achieved, test items can be more effectively screened using judgmental methods prior to…

Recent policy studies by the Education Trust and Heritage Foundation have tried to identify "high-flying" schools--schools that help students reach very high levels of achievement, despite significant disadvantages. This policy brief demonstrates three major problems with the findings of these reports. (1) Due to questionable…

This paper analyzes data from the "High School and Beyond" study on approximately 30,000 sophomores in 1,000 U.S. schools. The purpose is to explain the contradictory conclusions offered by two recent national studies on public and private schooling. The analysis examines differences between public and private school students in…