Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

Publication Date

7-7-1975

Abstract

The problem addressed in this dissertation is whether summer vacation accounts for more of the reading-achievement gap between minority and non-minority children than does the school year. A positive finding would support the compensatory approach to minority education; it would indicate that school can close the gap between minority and non-minority children. To test for the summer effect, the reading subtests of the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills were administered to approximately 1200 fifth-grade children in fifteen public schools in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in fall 1972, spring 1973, and fall 1973. Ethnic, income, and residential data were also collected for all children tested. Results indicate that summer does not account for more of the reading gap between minority and non-minority children; in fact, the gap closed during the summer and widened during the school year. Results also indicate that residence is the most effective independent variable in this context. Three different calendar-year learning patterns emerge. The first, which is shared by both low- and middle-income barrio Chicano children, involves substantial school-year loss, relative to the other children, offset by summer gain. The second pattern, which is shared by Anglo children and middle-income non-barrio Chicano children, involves moderate school-year gain, relative to the other children, offset by summer loss. The third pattern which emerges is characteristic of only one group of children: low-income non-barrio Chicanos. This pattern involves excellent school-year gain, relative to the other children, and no summer loss. A repeated measures analysis of variance was performed on a stratified random sample of the five groups of children. Results indicate that the differences between the calendar-year learning patterns of the five sampled groups are statistically significant, although the level of confidence is not extremely high (p< .20). Differences between the samples and total groups seem to account to some extent for the high p value. The Albuquerque results are different from the results of previous studies, as well as from predictions based on the prevailing compensatory approach to minority education. A careful comparison of the Albuquerque study with the three earlier studies is therefore undertaken. The comparison reveals that two of the three earlier studies suffer from such severe methodological problems as to be unreliable. Only one of the three previous studies provides any real evidence for the existence of the summer effect. The subjects of this study were kindergarten and primary children. Although the definition of minority in the four studies differs with respect to both ethnicity and income, the calendar-year learning patterns of minority children are similar across all the studies. It is the similarly defined dominant-culture children whose learning patterns differ: in the other cities, they gained during both the school year and summer; in Albuquerque, they gained during the school year, but lost during the summer. The study permits the following conclusions. First, evidence for the summer effect is lacking in Albuquerque: school does not close the reading gap for barrio Chicano children. However, it is only the residential dimension of minority status that is resistant to the schools' intervention; the ethnic and economic dimensions are amenable. Second, the relationships between minority and non-minority achievement are not the same in the four extant studies. Surprisingly, this is attributable to differences between dominant-culture, rather than minority, children.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Educational Leadership

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy

First Committee Member (Chair)

Wayne Paul Moellenberg

Second Committee Member

David Lawrence Bachelor

Third Committee Member

Lewis R. Binford

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