Racial and gender disparities in elementary mathematics

December 19, 2021

Authors

Phillip A. Boda

University of Illinois Chicago

Katherine James

Northwestern University

Jose Sotelo

Northwestern University

Steven McGee

The Learning Partnership

David Uttal

Northwestern University

Disparities in Mathematics performance have been shown across race and gender for decades, although little research has reported the race by gender nexus in terms of disparity. In turn, research done to ameliorate these disparities have assumed that these differences are primarily among student populations who need remedial learning improvement. In this research, we test these assumptions by using multinomial regression analyses and adjusted mean comparisons with bias-corrected effect sizes from a data set of ~20,000 2nd grade students in Chicago. Further, we contribute to previous elementary Mathematics research by illuminating the powerful impacts that spatial reasoning integrations into Mathematics curriculum and pedagogy can have for all students’ learning. Our findings provide empirical support that even after accounting for the effects of school composition, racial disparities exist in the beginning and persist throughout the year, among 2nd grade students. However, upon disaggregating students by race, gender, and median split, such disparities are greatest among students that are above the median. Our results encourage quantitative research analyses that explore ways to reduce Mathematics disparities to sharpen their approaches to be more sensitive to the achievement levels of students among such equity inquiries.

Research Areas

Suggested Citation

Boda, P. A., James, K., Sotelo, J. McGee, S., & Uttal, D. (2022). Racial and gender disparities in elementary mathematics. School Science and Mathematics, 122, 36-53. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssm.12506

Add your information to our mailing list for updates about what’s new at The Learning Partnership.