Russell Rumberger
University of California, Santa Barbara, Education, Faculty Member
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Research Interests: Psychology and Economics
Background/Context The 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision on Brown v. Board of Education concluded that segregated schools were inherently unequal and therefore unlawful. That decision was not based solely upon the notion that segregated... more
Background/Context The 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision on Brown v. Board of Education concluded that segregated schools were inherently unequal and therefore unlawful. That decision was not based solely upon the notion that segregated black schools were inferior in terms of academic instruction, curricular rigor, resources, etc., but also on research that showed segregating black children had negative social-emotional and behavioral consequences. However, the vast majority of the research on school segregation over the past 50 years, has focused on its effects on academic achievement and opportunity to learn. As a result, little is known about the effects of school segregation on social-emotional and behavioral outcomes. This is a critical gap in the literature because other research indicates that school behaviors are as strong or stronger predictors of long-term educational, social, and employment outcomes as academic achievement. Objectives The purpose of this study is to examin...
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Research Interests: Sociology and Linguistics
This chapter first reviews some prominent models of dropping out and the role that individual factors, including engagement, and contextual factors play in the process. It then reviews empirical research related to those factors, with a... more
This chapter first reviews some prominent models of dropping out and the role that individual factors, including engagement, and contextual factors play in the process. It then reviews empirical research related to those factors, with a focus on engagement-related factors. Scholars have proposed a number of models to explain the process of dropping out of school. While there is a fair amount of overlap in the models, they differ with respect to the specific factors that are thought to exert the most influence on dropping out and the specific process that leads to that outcome. The review of conceptual models of the empirical research literature leads to several conclusions about why students drop out. First, no single factor can completely account for a student’s decision to continue in school until graduation. Just as students themselves report a variety of reasons for quitting school, the research literature also identifies a number of salient factors that appear to influence the decision. Second, the decision to drop out is not simply a result of what happens in school. Clearly, students’ behavior and performance in school influence their decision to stay or leave. But students’ activities and behaviors outside of school—particularly engaging in deviant and criminal behavior—also influence their likelihood of remaining in school. Third, dropping out is more of a process than an event.
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Page 1. AN EXCHANGE: THE ECONOMIC DECLINE OF COLLEGE GRADUATES: FACT OR FALLACY?* RUSSELL W. RUMBERGER ABSTRACT Using Census data and information from the Department of Labor on the skill ...
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This study uses Early Childhood Longitudinal Study data to investigate the importance of three general aspects of teacher effects—teacher background qualifications, attitudes, and instructional practices—to reading and math achievement... more
This study uses Early Childhood Longitudinal Study data to investigate the importance of three general aspects of teacher effects—teacher background qualifications, attitudes, and instructional practices—to reading and math achievement gains in first grade. The results indicate that compared with instructional practices, background qualifications have less robust associations with achievement gains. These findings suggest that the No Child Left Behind Act’s “highly qualified teacher” provision, which screens teachers on the basis of their background qualifications, is insufficient for ensuring that classrooms are led by teachers who are effective in raising student achievement. To meet that objective, educational policy needs to be directed toward improving aspects of teaching, such as instructional practices and teacher attitudes.
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Research is reported that examines changes between 1960 and 1976 in the incidence of overeducation, defined as the discrepancy between the educational attainments of workers and the educational requirements of their jobs. Estimates are... more
Research is reported that examines changes between 1960 and 1976 in the incidence of overeducation, defined as the discrepancy between the educational attainments of workers and the educational requirements of their jobs. Estimates are derived at the aggregate level ...
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This paper examines the extent of the high school dropout problem in 1979 and investigates both the stated reasons students leave school and some of the underlying factors influencing their decision. Particular attention is focused on... more
This paper examines the extent of the high school dropout problem in 1979 and investigates both the stated reasons students leave school and some of the underlying factors influencing their decision. Particular attention is focused on differences by sex, race, and family background. Data for this research come from a new, national sample of youth who were 14 to 21 years of age in 1979. A multivariate model is developed to estimate the effects of family background and other factors on the decision to drop out of school. Several results emerge from the study: The reasons students cite for leaving school vary widely, with women more likely to leave because of pregnancy or marriage and men more likely to leave to go to work; family background strongly influences the propensity to drop out of school and accounts for virtually all the racial differences in dropout rates; various other factors, including ability and aspirations, also influence this decision.
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Prior research on dropouts has often focused on high schools and examined the issue from either the individual perspective or the institutional perspective. Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey of 1988 and a new... more
Prior research on dropouts has often focused on high schools and examined the issue from either the individual perspective or the institutional perspective. Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey of 1988 and a new form of hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), this study focuses on dropouts from middle school and examines the issue from both individual and institutional perspectives. At the individual level, the results identified a number of family and school experience factors that influence the decision to leave school, with grade retention being the single most powerful predictor. But disaggregating the analysis also revealed that there are widespread differences in the effects of these factors on White, Black, and Hispanic students. At the institutional level, the results revealed that mean dropout rates vary widely between schools and that most of the variation can be explained by differences in the background characteristics of students. But restricting the...
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Human capital theory suggests that education enhances worker productivity and is reflected in higher individual earnings. We use data from the 1969 Survey of Working Conditions and the 1973 and 1977 Quality of Employment Surveys, and a... more
Human capital theory suggests that education enhances worker productivity and is reflected in higher individual earnings. We use data from the 1969 Survey of Working Conditions and the 1973 and 1977 Quality of Employment Surveys, and a model derived from the industrial psychology literature, to test the proposition that workers' education in excess of what their jobs require can have adverse effects on job satisfaction and other correlates of worker productivity. Our results support earlier studies that have found surplus schooling has a negative effect on job satisfaction. Our findings also indicate that the negative impact of surplus schooling on job satisfaction and turnover is more significant for workers with a higher level of surplus education. Finally, the negative effects of surplus schooling appear to change over time.
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ABSTRACT
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Exploring the development of non-cognitive, or "21st century" skills, is an important goal of the International Study of City Youth (ISCY). This paper sets out a framework for measuring 21st century skills in ISCY alongside... more
Exploring the development of non-cognitive, or "21st century" skills, is an important goal of the International Study of City Youth (ISCY). This paper sets out a framework for measuring 21st century skills in ISCY alongside selected measures of student engagement and dispositions towards school, to inform analysis of the skills across the 12 cities participating in the ISCY project. The proposed framework draws on contemporary literature, as well as conceptual and quantitative analysis of the ISCY Student Survey data, to develop robust scales for measuring the skills in an international context.
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Student mobility (students moving from one school to another for reasons other than being promoted to the next school level) is widespread in the United States. This Spanish-language Digest examines the research on the academic... more
Student mobility (students moving from one school to another for reasons other than being promoted to the next school level) is widespread in the United States. This Spanish-language Digest examines the research on the academic consequences of mobility for elementary school students and discusses what schools and parents can do to mitigate the possible negative effects of changing schools. The Digest notes that studies that do not control for the background characteristics of students consistently find that mobile students have lower achievement on average than non-mobile or stable students. Studies that do account for background differences, however, find that mobility may be more of a symptom than a cause of poor school performance. Other studies noted indicate that only frequent moves-three or more-predicted grade retention, and that mobility during elementary school as well as during high school diminishes the prospects for graduation. The Digest then offers suggestions for help...
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One of the major educational challenges in virtually all industrialised nations is raising the education level of the workforce. This includes getting more students to complete upper secondary school or what is referred to as ‘high... more
One of the major educational challenges in virtually all industrialised nations is raising the education level of the workforce. This includes getting more students to complete upper secondary school or what is referred to as ‘high school’ in the United States. Completing high school is increasingly viewed as a minimal requirement for entry into the labour market and for further,
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... We would like to knowledge the following persons who worked on the project: Deborah Navarette, Jorge Hermosillo, Maria Neil, Elena Webb, Sonia Della Ripa, Susan Mays, Valery Perelman,Tereza Becica, Niki Zolotas, Marian Elena Perez,... more
... We would like to knowledge the following persons who worked on the project: Deborah Navarette, Jorge Hermosillo, Maria Neil, Elena Webb, Sonia Della Ripa, Susan Mays, Valery Perelman,Tereza Becica, Niki Zolotas, Marian Elena Perez, Divya Shukla, Susan De La Mora ...
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Policy makers are especially concerned about persistently high dropout rates among U.S. Latinos, the largest minority population in the United States. This study used a national longitudinal database to show that the behavioral and social... more
Policy makers are especially concerned about persistently high dropout rates among U.S. Latinos, the largest minority population in the United States. This study used a national longitudinal database to show that the behavioral and social aspects of schooling are dynamically linked in the process of school completion and dropout among Mexican American and non-Latino white adolescents. In contrast to the tendency of academically disengaged students to develop street-oriented friendships, students who are involved in school tend to befriend others who also make schooling a priority. Thus, student engagement influences competing friendship networks in a manner that contributes to the completion of school. Furthermore, engagement behaviors and school-oriented friendship networks have the potential to reduce dropout rates. To their social and educational detriment, however, Mexican American students appear to be less engaged in unorganized academic endeavors and formally sponsored extrac...
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Abstract: This manual describes the PACT (Parent and Community Team) for School Success concept, which was developed from insights and techniques gained from three dropout and intervention projects with high-risk junior high school youth... more
Abstract: This manual describes the PACT (Parent and Community Team) for School Success concept, which was developed from insights and techniques gained from three dropout and intervention projects with high-risk junior high school youth and families. ...
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Page 1. The Impact of Surplus Schooling on Productivity and Earnings Russell W. Rumberger ABSTRACT This article examines the impact of surplus schooling on individual productivity and earnings. It proposes a model that ...
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This Report is brought to you for free and open access by the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) at ACEReSearch. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSAY Research Reports by an authorized administrator of ACEReSearch. For... more
This Report is brought to you for free and open access by the Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) at ACEReSearch. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSAY Research Reports by an authorized administrator of ACEReSearch. For more information, please contact ...