Price, Carol Lei; PhD
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII, 2001
EDUCATION, SOCIOLOGY OF (0340); EDUCATION, SECONDARY (0533); EDUCATION,
ADMINISTRATION (0514)
High schools no longer formally assign students to college-preparatory, general,
and vocational tracks.
Consequently, whether or not tracking emerges from the differentiated curriculum
of schools has now
become a valid empirical question. This study offers a unique way of thinking
about tracks by treating
them as emergent structures in loosely-connected complex high school organizations.
In order to
capture their structural aspects and bring to light a feature normally invisible
to those who inhabit these
organizations, tracks are reconceptualized as sociocurricular positions that
emerge from student
coursetaking patterns. This study examines the phenomenon of student differentiation
in high schools
through a microanalysis of coursetaking patterns in a particular school. Since
all students in a high school
take courses, an examination of their actual coursetaking behavior over four
years reveals a most
fundamental form of sorting and stratification in these organizations. Using
social network methods,
students' linkages with course-teacher-time events are analyzed. Sociocurricular
positions are
mathematically-derived, then the manner in which these positions differentiate
students on status
characteristics, academic achievement, and post-high school plans is examined.
Seven distinct
sociocurricular positions emerge bearing marked variations in member students'
characteristics,
accomplishments, and future plans. This array of positions constitutes a hierarchical
structure similar, if
not identical, to a system of tracks. This structure embodies the curricular
organization of the school and
reveals a social structure that privileges those of higher socioeconomic status,
Japanese ancestry, and
female gender. The results of this study provide strong evidence that informal
tracking operates in high
schools where professionals believe that they do not intentionally track. The
study suggests that both
researchers and policymakers direct attention to the role that student choice
plays in erecting emergent
track structures, the likelihood that the high school trajectory actually begins
at the earliest levels of
schooling, and the inequitable allocation of knowledge resources that results
when students are
differentiated according to gender, ethnicity, and SES.
Social
Systems Simulation Group
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