A global priority for the behavioural sciences is to develop cost-effective, scalable interventions that could improve the academic outcomes of adolescents at a population level, but no such interventions have so far been evaluated in a population-generalizable sample. Here we show that a short (less than one hour), online growth mindset intervention—which teaches that intellectual abilities can be developed—improved grades among lower-achieving students and increased overall enrolment to advanced mathematics courses in a nationally representative sample of students in secondary education in the United States. Notably, the study identified school contexts that sustained the effects of the growth mindset intervention: the intervention changed grades when peer norms aligned with the messages of the intervention. Confidence in the conclusions of this study comes from independent data collection and processing, pre-registration of analyses, and corroboration of results by a blinded Bayesian analysis.

Gender scholars draw on the “theory of gendered organizations” to explain persistent gender inequality in the workplace. This theory argues that gender inequality is built into work organizations in which jobs are characterized by long-term security, standardized career ladders and job descriptions, and management controlled evaluations. Over the past few decades, this basic organizational logic has been transformed. in the so-called new economy, work is increasingly characterized by job insecurity, teamwork, career maps, and networking. Using a case study of geoscientists in the oil and gas industry, we apply a gender lens to this evolving organization of work. This article extends Acker's theory of gendered organizations by identifying the mechanisms that reproduce gender inequality in the twenty-first-century workplace, and by suggesting appropriate policy approaches to remedy these disparities.

This article investigates the empirical basis for often-repeated arguments that gender differences in entrance into STEM majors are largely explained by disparities in prior achievement. Analyses use data from three national cohorts of college matriculates across three decades to consider differences across several indicators of high school math and science achievement at the mean and also at the top of the test distribution. Analyses also examine the different comparative advantages men and women enjoy in math/science vs. English/reading. Regardless of how prior achievement is measured, very little of the strong and persistent gender gap in physical science and engineering majors over time is explained. Findings highlight the limitations of theories focusing on gender differences in skills and suggest directions for future research.

This study examines how high school boys' and girls' academic effort, in the form of math coursetaking, is influenced by members of their social contexts. The authors argue that adolescents' social contexts are defined, in part, by clusters of students (termed "local positions") who take courses that differentiate them from others. Using course transcript data from the recent Adolescent Health and Academic Achievement Study, the authors employ a new network algorithm to identify local positions in 78 high schools in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Incorporating the local positions into multilevel models of math coursetaking, the authors find that girls are highly responsive to the social norms in their local positions, which contributes to homogeneity within and heterogeneity between local positions.The adolescent is choosing how to invest time, and … the choices depend greatly on the social system surrounding them. (Coleman 1996, p. 346) This study examines how high school boys' and girls' academic effort, in the form of mathematics coursetaking, is influenced by their social contexts. The literature on sociology of education has established how adolescent coursetaking is influenced by schools' decisions and resource allocations (e.g., Natriello, Pallas, and Alexander 1989;Hallinan 1991;Useem 1992). Other sociologists have described education, independent of the school's function as a social institution, in terms of status attainment, arguing that adolescents and young adults are influenced by their parents' education, occupations, and aspirations (Sewell and Hauser 1976;Steelman and Powell 1991). Complementing status attainment theory, standard economic models directly address parents' motivations for investing in their children for long- (Adelman 1999). But, as implied by Coleman's quote in the epigraph above, while adolescents may be influenced by adults, including school faculty, administrators, and parents, they may also respond to their peers in making short-and longterm educational decisions (see also Sizer 1984;Crosnoe, Cavanagh, and Elder 2003; RiegleCrumb, Farkas, and Muller 2006). In this article we examine how an adolescent may be influenced in particular by the cluster of students with whom she takes courses-which we term the local position. NIH Public AccessWe focus specifically on effort in the domain of math coursetaking for four reasons. First, math has gained increasing attention in the popular press (e. Simpkins, Davis-Kean, and Eccles 2006) for its potential contributions to society. Second, math is an important gateway to other advanced courses and college entry and therefore to pursuing human capital (Sells 1973;Adelman 1999;Simpkins et al. 2006;Sadler and Tai 2007). Third, math has long been a key to the social organization of the school, as it is used to delineate academic tracks (Stevenson, Schiller, and Schneider 1994;Gamoran and Hannigan 2000;Lucas and Good 2001). Fourth, although math coursetaking has been the focus of considerable empirical study, ...

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The disproportionate identification of learning disabilities among certain socio-demographic subgroups, typically groups who are already disadvantaged, is perceived as a persistent problem within the education system. The academic and social experiences of students who are misidentified with a learning disability may be severely restricted, while students with a learning disability who are never identified are less likely to receive the accommodations and modifications necessary to learn at their maximum potential. We use the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 to describe national patterns in learning disability identification. Results indicate that socio-demographic characteristics are predictive of identification with a learning disability. While some conventional areas of disproportionality are confirmed (males and language minorities), differences in SES entirely account for African-American and Hispanic disproportionality. Discrepancy between the results of bivariate and multivariate analyses confirms the importance of employing multivariate multilevel models in investigation of disproportionality.

The 1974 Lau decision requires that U.S. public schools ensure a meaningful education for students learning English. English as a Second Language (ESL) placement is an institutional response to the linguistic needs of these students; however, its academic implications remain largely unexplored. Using nationally representative data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS), the effects of ESL placement on college preparatory course enrollment and academic achievement of language minority students are estimated, first with fixed effects regression models and then with multi-level propensity score matching techniques. While numerous school and individual level factors beyond language proficiency predict ESL placement, a significant negative estimated effect of ESL placement on science enrollment and cumulative GPA is consistently found. Perhaps more important, however, no positive effects of ESL placement on the achievement of language minority youth are found when accounting for English proficiency and other potential covariates.

Reflected self-appraisal suggests that individual functioning is related to the fit between individual characteristics and the norms of their primary contexts. To apply this social psychological concept to the study of obesity, we hypothesized that adolescents at risk of obesity would have lower academic achievement overall than other students, especially in schools in which their weight status was most likely to elicit negative evaluations. Multi-level modeling of nationally representative data revealed that the negative longitudinal association between risk of obesity and achievement was stronger in schools with higher rates of romantic activity and lower average body size among students, two school contexts in which obesity was likely to be stigmatized, but weaker in schools with higher rates of athletic participation, a school context in which such stigmatization was also likely. Additional analyses suggested that this last, unexpected finding reflected a process of niche-picking.