The Education Policy Initiative at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy


presents

Income Inequality and Educational Outcomes

Sean F. Reardon
Professor of Education
Stanford University

Wednesday, September 26 2012, 4:00 – 5:30pm
Free and open to the public

Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Betty Ford Classroom, 1110 Joan and Sanford Weill Hall
735 South State Street, Ann Arbor

Income Inequality and Educational Outcomes
Income inequality among the families of school-age children in the US has grown sharply in the last 40 years. In this talk Dr. Reardon will describe his research findings from three studies that examine the relationship of income and income inequality to educational outcomes. The first focuses on trends in the ”˜income achievement gap’ (the test score gap between children from high- and low-income families) over the last 50 years, using data from 13 nationally representative studies conducted between 1959-2009. The second investigates the relationships among income, achievement, and the selectivity of the colleges in which students enroll, using data from the high school classes of 1982, 1992, and 2004. The third study investigates the association between national income inequality levels and a country’s income achievement gap, using data from 19 OECD countries in 2001-2009. Dr. Reardon will conclude the talk with discussion of the causes and implications of patterns and trends identified in the research.

Sean F. Reardon
Sean F. Reardon is professor of education and (by courtesy) sociology at Stanford University, and Director of the Stanford Interdisciplinary Training Program in Quantitative Education Policy Analysis. His scholarship focuses on the effects of education policy on educational and social inequality; on the causes, patterns, trends, and consequences of social and educational inequality; and in applied statistical methods for education research. His primary research examines the relative contribution of family, school, and neighborhood environments to racial/ethnic and socioeconomic achievement disparities. Most recently, he has written about the widening academic achievement gap between children from high- and low-income families and about the growth in residential segregation between high- and low-income families over the last 40 years. Sean received his doctorate in education in 1997 from Harvard University. He has been a recipient of a William T. Grant Foundation Scholar Award, a Carnegie Scholar Award, and a National Academy of Education Postdoctoral Fellowship.

The Education Policy Initiative (EPI) is a program of coordinated activities designed to bring the latest academic knowledge to issues of education policy.

This event is generously supported by Charles H. and Susan Gessner.